Nobody ever said life was fair……..
Nobody ever said life was just……..
Okay, maybe they did, but they were pretty stupid.
And they never got anywhere in life.
Truth is, life is not very fair at all. That’s why we are having revolutions in different parts of the world right now.
That’s why we have always had revolts ….. throughout the history of mankind.
Fact is: Continue reading
“Temperament does not predestine one man to sanctity and another to reprobation. All temperaments can serve as the material for ruin or for salvation…It does not matter how poor or how difficult a temperament we may be endowed with. If we make good use of what we have, if we make it serve our good desires, we can do better than another who merely serves his temperament instead of making it serve him.”
–Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
This passage from Merton caught my attention, because of my Four Tendencies framework for personality.
In that framework, I divide all of humanity into four types: Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, and Rebel. (Want to find out what you are? The Quiz is here. Almost 500,000 people have taken it.) Continue reading
Economic growth is important for the well being of families, communities, and cultures. Economic growth cannot occur without a certain degree of inspiration that leads to innovation. The myth that only certain people are inspired needs to be dispelled, and what needs to be realized is that anyone, regardless of their current state in life can be inspired, express their creativity, and be innovative enough to start something that can blossom and flourish into an entrepreneurial enterprise that not only enhances themselves, rather also it enhances everyone impacted by it. Continue reading
When we are choosing the people in our lives, we like to pick ones that comfort us and support us in our times of need. Part of our relationships with these people means supporting them as well. Some of us don’t really know what it means to be supportive, and we do the best we can.
So, what does it mean to be supportive? What can we do to connect with our loved ones better, and help lift them up without any burden to ourselves? Luckily, the answer is quite simple.
Many of us are fixers – we like to solve other people’s problems, lend a hand, and make sure everyone else’s lives are running smoothly. As a fixer myself, I know that more than enough time is spent on these tasks. Living as an adult child of an alcoholic means that I am well versed in the art of fixing, whether it is cleaning up after someone, fixing their mistakes, or bailing them out of trouble when that might not be the best thing for them. Being a fixer is not a bad thing; many of us are caregivers by nature, and we genuinely do love to help out. Being a fixer just means we spend a little too much time focused on fixing others.
Unfortunately, the best intentions can sometimes go astray. We know that we are coming from a loving place or wanting to help and connect with the other person. Constantly telling them how to fix their problems, however, is not what someone wants out of a supportive friend, and we often get pushed away. Continue reading
Intent.com community is based all over the world.
That means an entire world of experiences, circumstances, hopes and dreams being poured out and more often than not, we find intents that mirror moments we’re experiencing with or without knowing the author.
Today we share our top 10 intents along with soul questions to get your heart and mind pondering in the event you find an intent that feels like your own:
A great first step towards finding the relationship you want is to know WHAT you want. It will help you prioritize who and what is important.
Are you being the person you want to meet?
Are you saying no to unhealthy relationships and interactions?
Rocky Basile is the compact drumming dynamo behind the sound the Modern Rock Band Mildly Medicated. What do you get when you combine a lead singer with Hemophilia, a guitarist with ADD, a guitarist with diabetes, a bassist with Tourette’s, and a drummer on HGH therapy? You get the modern rock band Mildly Medicated. Against all possible odds, these uniquely talented young musicians from Monmouth County NJ found each other in 2012, all unaware that each of them had medical issues. It was only until they were discussing possible band names that they all realized that they shared a commonality.
Labels – Sometimes the packaging hides what’s really within
I’ve been called them all, midget, dwarf, shrimp, shorty, just to name a few. When a girl 
writes in your middle school yearbook “Rocky, you’re my favorite midget in the whole world” it’s hard to find the compliment in that statement. By then I was already one of the best drummers my age in the state of NJ, but that didn’t seem to matter much to people my age. I think that’s one of the things that drew me to drums, other than the fact that I sucked at everything else, was that I sounded big. I mean you could barely see be behind the kit, but there was no question I was there when I stated to play. My beats were loud, angry, attacking, and complex; all the things I wasn’t in physical form.
You see, at age 12 I was diagnosed with a non-functioning pituitary gland, which just happens to be the gland that produces human growth hormone when you sleep. My growth velocity was measured as zero. I was destined to be a little person. Other than being able to park in the handicapped zone, I wasn’t really happy with the prospects of being 4’2″.
My parents gave me two options, one being to break my legs and transplant bone grafts into the gap and put rods through my legs to hold everything in place, or lobby our insurance company for legal human growth hormone, which costs around $5,000 a month. I opted for hormone therapy, and thus we embarked on a two year battle with our health insurance company to get them to pay for it. Their position was I was not sick. Our position was that we wanted them to look at the situation holistically and treat the entire patient, not just an affected area. I would be a happier and healthier person if I was able to grow to a normal height. During this two year battle with them, my internal clock was ticking, and my growth plates would eventually lock up, and no hormone would ever make a difference. I became depressed hearing my father constantly fighting with the insurance company, while trying to hide the pain of labels and the natural abuse you get in school by being the “favorite midget” .
The recluse
Even though we finally won the battle over the insurance company and I was taking daily injections into the flank of my stomach, I threw myself in my music because I could feel the 
depression and the anger start to build. School was still problematic, and I had not yet found my voice. My body was changing, some of it for the better, but some not. It’s a funny thing about human growth hormone, it makes everything grow, even the bad stuff inside you. And for me, the bad stuff wanted to make itself known. I developed tumors in my wrists and ankles, which is not great if you’re a drummer, causing me to have multiple surgical procedures. I had just started playing with my band Mildly Medicated, I had just starting feeling like I was accepted and surrounded by people who understood me, and now my drumming career could potentially be over. Continue reading
One of my favorite quotes in the world is Theodore Roosevelt’s, “Far Better to Dare Mighty Things”.
“Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor souls who neither enjoy nor suffer much, in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”
No one on earth lives this wisdom more than one of our Project Athena “Survivors”, Alli Morgan. I created Project Athena to help women survivors of medical or other traumatic setbacks achieve their adventurous dreams.
When Alli was 15 years old, she tore her ACL in a soccer game. She went in for a routine surgery to fix her ACL and was progressing toward recovery until she faced intense pain and couldn’t advance further in her therapy. It was discovered in an x ray that a screw was lodged in the joint and the replaced ACL was too long. So she underwent a second surgery to correct the first. A few weeks after her second surgery, a staph infection set in, and her surgical wound refused to close. The ligaments and hardware in her knee became septic and were removed, but the infection continued to spread.
Over the next four years, which were spent on crutches, Alli endured over 40 surgeries and spent a collective 15 months in the hospital, missing college. To literally add insult to injury, her leg had become irrevocably locked straight, and no surgeon could provide her with an answer about whether she would ever be able to bend that leg or walk again. So at the very young age of 20, Allie decided to make a very brave decision to avoid the “gray twilight” her life had become, and she dared to do a very mighty thing.
She decided to become an elective above the knee amputee to gain her life back. She applied for a grant to become one of our Project Athena “Athenas” for the Keys to Recovery Adventure, which is a kayak and bike ride from Key Largo to Key West. She completed all 120 miles of that journey in 2012 surrounded by a supportive group of fundraising gods and goddesses in and crossed the finish line with her new bionic leg and her new life. She’s now a member of the US Paralympic Skeleton Team.
For me, Alli truly embodies Theodore Roosevelt’s Far Better To Dare Mighty Things quote, because she knew that there would be fear, failure, and pain along the way….but a far bigger fear for her was to take rank with those poor souls who neither enjoy much nor suffer much in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat. She knew her life would be harder in many ways, but as she said in an interview, “I didn’t know if I was going to get my life back or what would ultimately happen, I just knew I had to try”. Brave words, from a brave young lady who would much rather have victory or defeat than what ifs.
So what is your gray twilight? How are you in limbo in your life? It’s time to channel your inner Alli Morgan and dare mighty things!
Robyn Benincasa is a World Champion Adventure Racer, 3x Guinness World Record Kayaker, San Diego City Firefighter, 10x Ironman Triathlete, sought-after leadership speaker, New York Times Bestselling author of ‘How Winning Works’, proud owner of 2 bionic metal hips, and the Founder and CEO of The 501c3 Project Athena Foundation, which helps survivors live an adventurous dream as part of their recovery. In her spare time, Robyn’s favorite hobby is inspiring people to do insane, life affirming things like run their first triathlon, start their own business, hike the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim, or kayak and ride 100 miles from Key Largo to Key West. For more information visit www.robynbenincasa.com and www.projectathena.org.
How often have you heard someone say: “Wow… that song really moves me!”… or “That piece is so stirring…!” Well, there’s a reason for that: there’s an emotional connection… a bridge… which inexorably links our physical selves in this earthly world to our souls in the spiritual world. It’s one of the very few absolutes we can count on. And unless you’re sociopathic or a psychopath.. it’s inescapable. In other words, being touched in some way by any/all music that you hear makes an impact to some extent that’s unavoidable. One’s auditory connection to the physical world instantly translates any music you hear into emotional “triggers” that migrate immediately to the cerebellum and hippocampus (part of the brain’s limbic system) regions in the central and medial temporal lobe of the brain where neurons process the synapses into sensation… what we call “emotional feelings”.
The impact of these emotional feelings varies for myriad reasons of course, a few being one’s personality, likes/dislikes, environmental situations and so on. But there is no discussion that can argue against this impact and how this transferance moves our spiritual intent to new highs… or lows depending on the music. I said spiritual intent because the reality is that your emotions drive your spirit whether you want that or not.
And you CAN function with intent both physically and emotionally… and you should. Otherwise, as you no doubt have commented to yourself at times about some people you have seen, your life becomes aimless, your actions shiftless and without direction. Seems lately like there’s so many more people like that these days, young and old: without direction, without intent. I’m certain that if used correctly, music could help them.
The fascinating study of how truly impactful and enriching music is to humanity has in recent years become an entire and separate discipline of collegiate study: music therapy. Just visit Children’s Hospital Los Angeles or any hospital with major emphasis in children’s medicine and you will see music therapy being applied just as readily as pharmacological remedies. The point here is that the biological effect AND the spiritual effect BOTH need to be applied in many cases to aid in full and comprehensive treatment if a young patient is to be returned to full health. And I mean FULL health, which includes spiritual nourishment in equal amounts as medication. Music can and does provide emotional uplifting which raises the spirit in injured or diseased patients and obviously now, it is done with the intent that the process will manifest very positive results. It’s been proven. It works. Continue reading
By Steve Freed of Mildly Medicated
Steve Freed is the 2nd lead Guitarist of the Modern Rock Band Mildly Medicated. What do you get when you combine a lead singer with Hemophilia, a guitarist with ADD, a guitarist with diabetes, a bassist with Tourette’s, and a drummer on HGH therapy? You get the modern rock band Mildly Medicated. Against all possible odds, these uniquely talented young musicians from Monmouth County NJ found each other in 2012, all unaware that each of them had medical issues. It was only until they were discussing possible band names that they all realized that they shared a commonality.
It’s not easy not knowing what is wrong
It all started so normally. I grew up happily in the bucolic and sleepy town of Colts Neck NJ, content to play video games and watch movies on TV. My parents were wonderful and I got 
along ok with my older sister. I was generally a quiet kid and blended in well, sometimes into the back ground, of school. Then things started to change. I became bloated and a little over weight. I started to not feel right. One day at school I passed out and it prompted my parents to get me tested of an assortment of things. When the results came back, it was determined that I had Type 1 Diabetes. I was dumbfounded. Continue reading
Over a year ago we saw the release of Living with Intent and the Intent.com app.
Both came after years of growing an Intent community who shared their truest hopes and passions with one another, supported one another and saw one another make dreams a reality.
So what’s going on over at Intent.com?
Today we wanted to share these beautiful intents created by our members while on the go using the Intent app: Continue reading
