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This podcast advocates for living a life fuelled by intuitive, and intellectual insight. It’s perspective, at times, can be awkwardly brilliant.
Each episode brings a wealth of valuable advice inspiring growth, and expansion. It explores conversations most humans are afraid to touch. You’ll listen to change-catalysts, culture-shifters, heart renderers, and a few troublemakers whose focus is on personal innovation, creativity, and new ways to live.
Inspiration will entice you to put down your screens, and listen to folks figuring out how to live ecstatic, health riddled, and more present lives. Guests will share how they’ve enabled themselves to be their truest reflections, and pursue a life with abandon, and love.
You’ll learn to live lighter and braver, more free, and less alone. You’ll explore you, and learn new ways to create and embody the world you want.
These conversations will reveal the deeply human part of who you are, so that you can live, love, be in relationship, and walk within your life braver having connected to what podcast host, Thomas Kevin Dolan, calls your HeartMind.
Welcome. And as you can see, this is me. Thomas, my pronouns are he and him. My husband, Adam, inspired me to video this my 13th podcast.
So I'm grateful for your presence. And I really like the idea that you get to see me doing this. My podcast is being recorded in Honolulu, Hawaii, actually my home. I acknowledge that the unseated I know a land on which my husband and I live is called Kakako.
It's part of the larger territory recognized by Kanakamali or indigenous Hawaiians. I'm honored and grateful to be a guest of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Setting intentions is more than just a self -help trend.
It's really a transformative practice that influences how we navigate our daily lives. My memoir, Little Fag, a journey of self -acceptance and healing,
is actually filled with examples of how my life unfolded with intention and how it unfolded sometimes disastrously without intention. Intention is about cultivating a mindset or a heart set that guides our actions,
emotions, our feelings, our thoughts towards really a desired way of being and since beginning As a strong purpose or aim,
it's accompanied by a determination to produce a desired result. It's actually a power that's present everywhere. Intention isn't a physical action per se, but a force.
And I think of it in a really elementary way. And I remember, and I'll share some stories in terms of how intention has been applied in my life. But I remember chatting with somebody about it, and I said, oh, actually, intention is The energy that God uses to create everything that we actually get to experience in our humanity.
And the person kind of wins to a little bit because I use the G word, God. And I said, I'm okay with that. Sometimes I use divine. Sometimes I use universe. Sometimes I use spirit. But essentially,
I sense intention as really the energy that is used to create the experience we have on this planet and inner times. Another way to think of intention comes from the great philosopher,
Carlos Castaneda. And Castaneda says this, intention is a force that exists in the universe. When sorcerers, those who live of the source,
I really like that, sorcerer. With humility, I consider myself a sorcerer. When sorcerers beckon intention, it comes to them and sets up the path for attainment,
which means that sorcerers always accomplish what they set out to do. I remember watching the first Lord of the Rings movie. I can't remember the title of it. There's been 20 since,
I think. But from that, it is the opening in the film, I think. And Frodo, the main character, The Hobbit, is actually waiting for somebody.
we don't know who it is. We eventually discover it's Gandalf, the gray, who eventually becomes Gandalf the white. And Grotto teases Gandalf, and he teases Gandalf this way.
He says, you're late. And Gandalf, in a very wizardly way, says, wizards always arrive at exactly the time they intend.
I smiled because I thought even in this film, intention is at play. So wizards arrive exactly when they intend. Unlike goals, which are often specific and target -driven and kind of more doing oriented,
intentions are really rooted in our deepest desires and values. And you hear me repeat that a couple of times in this podcast. They shape the quality of our experiences rather than just the outcomes.
And through intention setting and by intention setting, we can identify what truly matters to us and actually make them the center of our daily actions and decisions. It's how I move through my life.
I partner with intention all the time. That is my partner. I don't do anything by myself. I do it all with intention. So today, I'm going to talk about creating more life with intention.
I'm going to walk through what intention is. I'm going to speak to the benefits of intention setting. Setting an intention to be more present in your daily interactions isn't about achieving a specific outcome,
but rather about cultivating a mindset or heart set and having a deeper engagement in your own life. An intention setting practice is also about recognizing and affirming your personal power and agency.
It encourages you to ask questions like, how do I want to live. What qualities do I want to embody in my life? And how do I want to relate to others and the world around me?
And by answering these questions, at least for me, I established intentions that helped me respond to the complexities of my daily life, will actually staying true to my own authentic self,
my own authenticity. So what are my earliest recollections with intention is this.
It's actually in my book, and I think it's kind of cute. I'm going to take you back to grade one for a little Tommy Dolan. I'm in Mrs. Lamb's class, and it is show and tell.
And for those of you that might be of a different generation. Show and tell is when elementary school kids, perhaps junior high school kids, but I don't remember it. I only remembered in elementary school. You could bring something from home,
or you could want to talk about something, but typically because it was show you had something, and then you could tell your classmates about it. This was a day that was show and tell. And I'm not remembering what my little classmates were,
because of course I'm in grade five. That's a long time ago. I don't remember what my classmates talked about, but I was really inspired. And I remember thinking to myself, I want to tell my mom about something that I wanted my life.
And I wasn't really sure what it was. So I remember walking home and being excited about show and tell. And I walk in and my mom is there and none of my other siblings are there. And this now would be four other little ones,
right? The other five are they've flown the coop, as my mother would say. So I walk in, I look up at my mom and she said, and um And she looks at me and says,
oh dear, don't be so stupid. That was my intention in grade one. I said an intention to live in Hawaii. And of course,
if you listen to these podcasts, you know that not only has it been fulfilled numerous times over, but essentially it allowed me an opportunity to create for myself this really profound way of being that has always been with me.
So that is, wasn't grade one. And as my life would unfold, I would continue a connection with this intention to live in Hawaii. And of course, that's the backdrop. Those are the mountains that the Japanese flew over to descend upon and bomb Pearl Harbor.
I'm here, which is really, really terrific. So that was my first touch with, and my first intention was to live in Hawaii. Oh, dear, don't be so stupid.
What are the benefits? What are the benefits of setting intentions for your well -being? I think that through setting intentions, you can engage with a wide range of benefits for your overall well -being.
Let me share some of them. And these are ones that I would certainly own and would suggest that if this is the practice you start, they would also come to you, and perhaps even more. Setting intentions aligns your daily actions with your broader life purpose and priorities.
It marries your human beingness with your human doingness. The practice of intention setting encourages deep thinking and reflections about your desires.
So it's not a little whimsical exercise that you enroll in. It's about reflecting about your deepest desires, your ambitions, and the aspects of the life that you want to have change.
So they really require more attention or change. That's what intention can do. Regularly setting intention requires self -reflection that supports personal development. By focusing on intentions,
you shift your mindset or heart set from worrying about outcomes to actually enjoying the journey. And intention setting naturally leads to a more mindful and heartfelt way of living.
And of course, as you evolve, so do your intentions. They can be revised and refined to reflect your own life story. They can change at any time. They can adapt to your current state of being in aspirations.
So my Intentions for 2024 are really a living document. I go and see them all the time, and I've made changes to them. We're now in September. I've made changes to them so that they reflect kind of who I'm being and the circumstance I find myself in life.
So they're really quite dynamic, which I think is really, really exciting. Let me share another story with you about intention. And this is me taking you back to 2009, as opposed to the 60s,
2009. And it's about this notion of hearing or feeling a whisper from the universe. And the whisper was this, stop your work. I had a really successful consulting business that I had built up over an eight or nine year period with Canada's largest credit union of Vancouver.
But here's what I heard from the universe. Time to stop this work. I've been really good in my life at listening to these whispers from the universe. Sometimes they're really uncomfortable. This whisper was about quitting and folding up this consulting business.
So I listened to it. I went to my employer and said, it's time for me to leave. They were really curious as to what I was going to do, and I said, I actually have no idea. So as I sat quiet, kind of invoking this power of intention,
the first thing that came up for me was to go and sit on the island of Maui for a month. And in sharing this with some of my colleagues in marketing, one of them specifically said this. So what?
What's in Maui for you? And I said, I have no idea. There's something there for me. So I set an intention to hold up my consulting business, leave that work behind, and sit on the island of Maui with an intention to listen to what that island had for me.
I'm a week into sitting on the island of Maui in a beautiful condo in Wailea. Every morning I would wake up at about 516, every bird on the planet, every bird on the planet, every bird on the island wakes up at 517 in Maui,
and I would go off to a beautiful beach called McKenna, and I would do a walking meditation that was taught to me by a Buddhist monk in Vancouver. On the 8th day, which was a Saturday, I didn't want to get up.
I was a little bit tired. And again, I was nudged by the universe. And remember, my intention was to go and find out what this island had for me. So I got up a little bit later than usual. And I went to the beach.
I started my meditation, which took a long, long time. And then I would eventually come back and go to the other side of this beach called Little Beach. And I would lay down and go to sleep. And I remember being woken up by this energy in front of me,
and I was a little bit surprised because I didn't think anybody was on the beach, but I was woken up by the energy of this person walking in front of me. I had no context because the ocean was a backdrop, so I just actually went back to sleep.
And a little while later, I could feel the energy this time on the right side. And I turned and looked and connected eyes with this person. Now Maui taught me that when I connected eyes with somebody,
I was to go over and say aloha. So I did. I went over, I said aloha, met this person, had a beautiful 20 minute conversation. And as this person left to celebrate their birthday,
they were here for the weekend, they were on Maui for the weekend, I got a kiss. And actually wasn't on the cheek, I got a kiss on the lips. And this 20 -minute conversation was one of the things I was there for.
But ultimately, the biggest gift I was there for, this 20 -minute conversation actually landed me love, landed me a relationship. The 20 -minute conversation was with my husband,
Adam. So my intention to go and listen to what Maui had for me had for me was love. And I cannot tell you how much gratitude I have for that moment and specifically for my ability to have listened to and set that intention.
And of course, the rest is history. Setting mindful and heartful intentions is a deeply personal process as the most powerful intentions are those that truly speak to your individual journey and aspirations,
right? That one spoke to me, Maui spoke to me. Here's a few examples I have in my life, and please notice the clarity that these intentions are stated with. The universe only responds to you being crystal clear.
So notice the language here. Here's the first one. I express my thoughts and feelings with honesty. This intention is about embracing self -expression. Honor your truth and communicate it respectfully and authentically.
The second, I make a conscious effort to recognize and meet my physical, emotional, and mental needs. This is me being aware of how it is that I am to listen to myself.
Think about what self -care practices can make up a part of your daily return and routine and how you can actually set healthy boundaries for yourself. And the third I'll share is this. I prioritize building and maintaining meaningful relationships.
This is a consideration how you can cultivate empathy and understanding in interactions with other folks. So again, notice the clarity. The first one, I express my thoughts and feelings with honesty.
Crystal clear. I think I need to be honest sometimes. Part of the time I'll be honest. I express my thoughts and feelings with honesty. That's the foundation, too, the expression of my thoughts and feelings. The second,
I make a conscious effort to recognize and meet my physical, emotional, and mental needs. Notice the clarity, huh? And the third, I prioritize building meaningful and maintaining meaningful relationships.
Again, look at the clarity. I prioritize building and maintaining meaningful relationships. It is such a joy knowing that these three, and there are lots more, you can actually now begin to create your own,
and I'll give you a little bit of an idea of how to actually do that as we close off the podcast. Ah, my gosh. Another share around intention. So grade one kicked me off.
2009. This one is a little bit before 2009, but you can tell that it's been working and coursing its way through my entire lifetime. And this one dates back to probably in 1974.
I'm about to enter grade 10. And I'm walking actually for an orientation of the high school I'm about to go to. And as I kind of cross a little gate that takes me into a soccer field and across the soccer field is the school,
I'm stuck in my tracks. And this is what I hear. don't go to this school. Many of my siblings went to the school.
Many of them didn't graduate. This little whisper from the universe didn't create a nervousness for me. It actually created some joy for me.
And in that moment, what I did was I set an intention to attend a different high school. I didn't know what the high school was, so notice that wasn't clarity. So my intention was to go to a different high school.
I go through the orientation, and I attempt in the first year. I attempt to go to another school. It didn't work out. So my intention got crystal clear for 1975.
My intention was to attend Viscount Bennett High School. I wasn't going to go to St. Francis High School. And in September of 1975, I wasn't at St.
Francis. I was at by Count Bennett. The little Catholic boy intended to change. It came true. And there's all kinds of other reasons why it is that I was able to attend by Count Bennett.
A shout out to my oldest brother, Rick, who inspired me to do that. But most importantly, it would change my life. I would graduate. I would surround myself with people that would influence me and inspire me to go to university.
I would have teachers that would teach me lessons that were just extraordinary to this day. There's probably not a day that goes by where I don't remember something that one of those teachers in the high school told me. So that intention,
not to go to the high school, that intention to go to Vicon Bennett, a year later ultimately changed my life. So you can tell that setting intentions involves a reflective and thoughtful process with the end result of a more fulfilling life.
Bycott Bennett, not St. Francis. When you set intentions, remember that it's an ongoing process and that meaningful intentions will evolve as you do.
Stay open to learning and growing. It's one of the reasons I continue to partner with the energy called intention. So here's how you might do it. And I think there's about eight or nine of these. The first is be clear about what you want.
And I mean crystal clear about what you desire in your life. This clarity involves deep introspection. I've mentioned that a couple of times now to understand what truly matters to you,
what brings you joy, and what aligns with your core values. The second is, Focus on the positive. So instead of setting an intention to stop being so stressed,
re -frame it positively like this or frame it positively as I intend to embrace peace and calm in my daily life. This positive framing helps in creating a constructive and hopeful mindset and heart set,
plus you've told the universe what you want, calm and peace. The third, keep it simple. Intention setting comes from actually your more ingrained they become in your consciousness.
And now with intention set. So when I set an intention to attend a different school in 1974, I actually had to begin to change some of my habits.
So this aligning your actions with your intentions is really important. I made different choices. And of course, I created new routines that would support this intention to actually get me to No High School in 1975.
The sixth, practice patience and persistence. Be patient with yourself as you work towards aligning your life with your intentions. Persistence is key.
So even if you face setbacks, keep revisiting and reaffirming your intentions. I do it at least once a week. Number seven, reflect and adjust as needed.
This is not a static exercise. This is very dynamic. This changes as you change. It's perfectly okay to adjust your intentions as you grow or as your circumstances change.
The eighth one is this, incorporate mindfulness and meditation in this practice of intention setting. As I author a new set of intentions for a new year, so go back to December 2023,
I begin in my meditation to call to me or be called towards an intention that I think is really important for me. So engaging in mindfulness or heartfulness,
some kind of practice, I use meditation, it can enhance your connection to an intention. And I'll close with, yeah,
this idea of seeking support. It can be affirming and really powerful if you share an intention or some of your intentions with friends and family. They can be a powerful support for you.
Or you might find your intention lives somewhere out in a community with folks who are also connected to that kind of intention. So you can seek support in community around your intentions as well,
which I think is really, really important. Another walk back in history for you. This one is actually really special. I'm in grade five. I'm at St. Peter's elementary school in Calgary.
And it's recess time. And every recess, a teacher is assigned to supervise at the playground where all the kids are. And I typically,
I did a lot of playing at recess time, but on this particular day, and it wasn't just this day, I think teachers are assigned for a week at a time. A male teacher, I know his name on a chair with you. He has forever changed my life.
He was the supervising teacher on the playground that day. So instead of playing, I chose to just walk up and down the playground with him. We chatted about all kinds of things. I don't quite remember them.
But I do remember holding his hand. So this would be an older man, at least to what, an 11 - or 12 -year -old child. But I had a sense, not then. But now,
as a reflect back, I think this was a gay man, which I think was extraordinary. I was holding his hand. I felt safe. I felt comfortable. It was really cool to be around him. And as we were walking back and forth,
he kind of gently looked down at me and a little extra squeeze in my hand. And he said this, Tommy, at some point in time, I think it might be important for you to consider Surrounding yourself with different people other than your family.
And I looked up at him, and I felt this love, but I'd never heard anybody say to Adolin, you might want to consider surrounding yourself with people that are different than your family.
And, of course, at that time, right, we weren't well fed. We were never inspired to do homework. We were witnesses to violence at home.
I've shared with you. I've had this experience of being sexually abused. It was kind of hell. And here was a man saying to me, you might want to consider surrounding yourself with different people.
I set an intention in grade five. And it literally began in grade five to surround myself with people who were different than my family. It was a lifesaver for me,
and it's an intention that's still alive and well for me. For the people that are in my lives today, they are extraordinary, and they've come through that intention for me. So I will always remember,
right, this teacher, and I always remember this intention, this little great fibrous set for himself. So what does it mean to set intentions? I think setting intentions involves identifying and really articulating your core values,
your aspirations, and the ways you wish to live in your life. It for me creates a framework. It's formed by connecting, right,
my head and my heart, that 18 -inch journey I just told you about, that actually guides my actions, my thoughts, my reactions, and my responses to life. And unlike goal setting, which has a tendency to be a little bit more intellectual or cerebral,
and also goal setting is outcome focused. Intentions are more about the journey and actually how you want to experience life. How do you want to be in your life, not necessarily what you want to do in your life? And of course,
they're deeply personal, and they can be related to any aspect of your life, including your emotional well -being, your relationships, your career, and, of course, your personal growth. Why would you consider?
Why set intentions? I know it helps in cultivating a positive and proactive mindset and heart set. It's a guide that allows you to line up your daily actions and your decisions towards that life that you want that would be more fulfilling for you.
Intentions can strengthen your sense of purpose. They certainly do that for me. They boost motivation and they enhance an overall sense of well -being.
I don't know what my life would be without the power of intention. I really don't. I certainly could share lots of stories in my life where I wasn't guided by intention. And oh,
I created such pain for myself. Not always, not always, a lot of the time. So let me share with you how it is that I think you set intentions.
And you can find other information. You can certainly add things that are important to you, but here's a little bit of a baseline for you. It's certainly how it is that I set intents into my life. And you've heard this before.
Start by reflecting on what truly matters to you. Focus on the kind of person you want to be and the values you want to embody. Think and feel about the specific achievements or milestones you want to reach.
Write them down. If your intentions are not written down, if there isn't a place a universe can go to as a reminder of what is it you intend in your life,
it's a bit of a waste of time. And you want to write them down in clear and positive language and then create a step -by -step plan with some actionable steps. And of course,
simplicity and clarity are key. I've mentioned this before. Regularly review and adjust both your intentions and your milestones to ensure you stay aligned with your evolving aspirations and life circumstances.
And let me close with some clarification around what I sense is a bit of a buzz around the notion of manifestation. When I chat with people about intention, they say to me, oh, you're a manifester. And it's not that I say,
no, I'm not. I often ask them if I can kind of clarify what it is I mean by intention. Intention setting creates what you want. There's no doubt about that. You manifest that terrific partner by first being clear with the universe about the qualities you want this terrific partner to embody.
So you've already begun to create an intention around the values that this person has. Intention setting is about bringing your desired realities into existence by focusing your thoughts,
your feelings, your energy, and actions on what you want to achieve or become. Do and be. The achievement is you having manifested what you wanted with intention.
It's not the other way around. Intention allows you to have that thing. Once you have that thing, you've manifested, but you've done it through intention, not the other way around. It involves a belief in the power of your thoughts and feelings to influence your life's outcome,
and of course your partner is the energy called intention. So manifesting is a process that includes setting clear and positive intentions, intentions first,
visualizing your desired outcome, and taking actionable steps, making the intention of reality. So manifesting is based on the principle that by aligning your thoughts and energy with your intentions,
you can attract opportunities and circumstances that actually help you realize them. I trust that makes sense. So intention, it's the setting of intention to begin with in really simple positive language and you've written them down that then allows you to walk towards or that thing that you're intending actually begins to move towards you.
And then you could say, oh, I manifested. My walk to Maui in 2009 was me listening to. There's something there for me. My intention is to go to Maui and learn what is there.
So the moment I whispered that intention, right, what was in Maui for me began to walk towards me and I began to walk towards Maui. And, of course, it was love. It was love. So here's here's one more.
And one of the intentions in moving to Vancouver, it centered around home and where we wanted to be, but specifically, we wanted to buy a place in Vancouver. Because at some point in time, we'd want to be able to live here in Honolulu for a period of time and there in Vancouver for a period of time.
So here's what we did. I made a list of what it is our home would entail, where it would be, how much it would cost, that it was a one bedroom between 500 and 600 square feet, between 650 ,000 and 700 ,000 and Adam would do the same thing.
We'd combine the lists, and we'd set our intention out, right, to the universe. We handed the intention to our real estate agent. We began to see places. And here's what happened.
We saw places that eventually got us near to our intention and not completely our intention. And of course, we trust. We trust that what we intended is out there.
Our job was to listen to the universe, to walk towards places, look at them. And here's what eventually happened. We ended up at a condominium complex called the Ark in Vancouver. One bedroom.
That was on our list. Five, 600 square feet. That was on our list. In a beautiful neighborhood, that was on our list. Had a view of the ocean. That was on our list. We didn't write a view of the water,
because I've learned with intention, it's not clear. If we'd put view of the water, we might have a view to a fountain in the courtyard. We wanted a view to the ocean. This had it. It was on the 11th floor,
which was really lovely, because we wanted to be at least, I think it was 10 or above. This was the 11th floor. I know it sounds kind of cookie, but it's actually really true. Here's the kicker. In all of this, oh, and one other thing,
we'd both said we wanted, I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to homes. We wanted something that was new. This place was new. The woman that owned it at the time had hardly lived in it. We walked into what I thought was a show suite.
Another check. And here's the kicker. She wanted $850 ,000 Canadian. Our intention was $650 to $700 ,000 or less.
We negotiated. My husband did. Our real estate agent did. Here's what happened. We eventually bought the place for $699 ,000 The intention was $6 .50 to $700 ,000 or less.
I'm not sure the dynamics because I trust in intention. I don't need to figure it out. But we landed in a beautiful home that was completely aligned with our intentions. It's exactly what we manifested.
And I'm so proud. And I say this to you with all humility and as you can tell with all excitement. Yes, our home came to us because we sat quiet, wrote our intentions,
put them out to the universe, and then we began to listen and go to places. And eventually, there was our home. So I continue to be proud walking this life with the power of intention as my partner.
I can't imagine a life without that. And I'm going to encourage you to actually do the same thing. Let me close with this. It's actually a really cute story. Not mine, but I was the observer of this. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Carolyn Mace.
Carolyn Mace is in a... their hand with quite a bit of excitement.
And Carolyn called on this person, and this person said to Carolyn, I just wanted to share this really exciting story with you. And this person said, before I left the house, I set an intention to find a great parking spot.
And I did, she said, with great excitement. Carolyn Mays can be a bit of a bit. And I really, really like her. I like her energy, right? Because that's great energy. Carolyn was kind of up at the pulpit,
this was a presentation that took place in a church. So this woman said, before I left the house, I set an intention to find a really great parking spot. And I did. Kailen looked at her and said, hmm, and you're happy with just a parking spot?
The theater laughed uncomfortably because clearly everybody saw themselves in this woman and learned that, wow, Why do we set intentions as being grand for us?
Why do we set intentions that really resonate with our hearts? Why do we set intentions that really will fuel who it is that we're paying? So you're worth so much more than having an intention to park your car.
I appreciate you joining me today. Thank you.