“You are pre-paving your future experiences constantly by what you think and feel and say.” —Abraham
- When you think something is going to be difficult and you feel overwhelmed and say how hard it is…guess what? You are pre-paving your future experience.
- When you are filled with positive expectation and excited about something you’re about to do…guess what? You are pre-paving your future experience.
You are pre-paving all the time.
Sometimes you are pre-paving in ways that serve and support you and sometimes you are pre-paving in ways that work against you and what you want.
If you’re like me, as you think about the fact that you are pre-paving your future experiences all the time, it makes you want to pre-pave a little more deliberately, right? If you want your future to be a certain way, to feel a certain way, to yield certain things to you, then it’s very important what you are pre-paving in this moment, and in the next moment, and the next.
Abraham offers us a way to do this pre-paving more deliberately. It’s called Segment Intending.
“It is the process whereby you define the vibrational characteristics of the time segment you are moving into. It is a way of pre-paving your vibrational path, so to speak, for easier and more enjoyable travel.”
A segment, in this context, is simply any point in time, any block of time. Segment Intending recognizes your day is made up of many segments.
Here are a few examples: Waking in the morning, getting ready for the day, eating breakfast, commuting to work or school. Segments are also when you go into the meeting with your boss, when you pick up the phone to make that call, when you are filling out paperwork. Segments are doing the laundry, helping your child with homework, cleaning out the garage. Segments are applying for a loan, getting ready for a date, and attending a networking event. You get the idea.
The process of Segment Intending encourages you to pause as you enter into each new segment and focus your thoughts to intend how you want to show up and feel, to intend the vibration you offer.
With Segment Intending, you ask yourself: What is my dominant intention in this segment?
“This process will help you be more deliberate about focusing your thoughts. It will help you become more aware of where your thoughts currently are, and it will help you be able to more deliberately choose the thoughts that you offer. In time, it will feel very natural to you to stop for a moment upon entering a new segment and direct your own intent or expectation.” —Ask and It Is Given
Segment Intending is such a useful concept because it’s a way to focus your thoughts.
When your mind is unmanaged and your thoughts are all over the place, there is confusion in your vibration. On the other hand, when you focus your thoughts on the next segment you are moving into, there is an opportunity for more clarity in the thoughts you think and the vibration you offer.
As Abraham says, segment intending helps you more deliberately choose the thoughts you offer.
I want to share four ways you might be segment intending against yourself. It will be easy to remember the four ways I’m going to share because they all start with “w.”
Of course, none of us means to segment intend against ourselves. Nonetheless, I bet you’ll recognize yourself in at least one of the ways I’m going to describe.
The first way you could be segment intending against yourself is with worry.
When the vibration you offer is worry—no matter what the subject of your worry—you attract more into your life that matches up to this frequency.
Worry is #14 of 22 on the emotional scale. So while it’s not at the very bottom, it’s pretty far down. Worry is a gunky emotion, and one that’s all too easy to get momentum around. One worried thought leads to the next and pretty soon you’ve segmented intended against yourself.
As you go into a segment of your day, are you vibrating at worry?
As you go to the doctor or sit down to balance your checkbook or fill out the job application, are you offering a vibration of worry?
- Are you thinking thoughts that cause you to feel worried?
- Are you anticipating what unfolds through the lens of worry?
- Are you expecting conditions and circumstances that match up to emotion of worry?
If so, you are segment intending against yourself.
“Worrying is using your imagination to create something you don’t want.” —Abraham
If you go into a segment of your life, whatever that segment is about, and you are thinking thoughts that cause you to feel worry, you are segment intending against yourself.
I know this isn’t what you truly intend to do. It’s not what you want to do.
But Law of Attraction can only respond to the vibration you offer. And so if the vibration you offer is worry, then you will receive circumstances and conditions that match up. You will get more to worry about.
The next way you might be segment intending against yourself is what I call the worst-case scenario.
This one is so common, and many of us do this without even realizing we are doing it.
This type of segment intending against yourself is when you go into a situation thinking about all that could go wrong or not the way you want. You go into a situation anticipating and expecting and fearing some flavor of the worst-case scenario.
- You’ve applied for an internship and are waiting to hear if you’ve been accepted. Almost immediately you start segment intending against yourself with the domino of bad things that will unfold if you don’t get the internship.
- You receive a letter from the IRS. Before you even open it, you’ve started down the trail of worst-case scenarios about the bad news inside and all the things that bad news is going to lead to. That is segment intending against yourself.
- One of your most lucrative clients doesn’t renew their contract with your business. You start segment intending against yourself by making make that mean the sky is falling, your business will never be the same and may not survive, and all sorts of other worst-case scenarios.
Often when I point out this type of segment intending in a coaching session, a client will say she’s doing it to protect herself or lessen potential disappointment. Her argument is essentially that preparing for the worst-case scenario lessens the potential blow.
But that is not really understanding how Law of Attraction works.
You create your reality.
- If you move into the next segment of your day with the worst-case scenario as your background music, what sort of reality do you suppose you create?
- If you move into the next segment of your life—the house closing, the doctor appointment, the job interview—imagining all that could go wrong or thinking about the outcome you don’t want, you are segment intending against yourself.
You simply cannot think thoughts of the worst-case scenario and feel high vibe. Thinking thoughts of the worst case scenario means you will have a low vibration that matches. You will feel negative emotion. And that negative emotion is your point of attraction.
Segment intending against yourself with worst-case scenario thinking has zero upside. If you are planning for the worst-case scenario with your vibration, then you are creating the worst-case scenario.
“Today, no matter where I am going, no matter what I am doing, no matter who I am doing it with—it’s my dominant intention to see that which I am wanting to see.” —Abraham
Consider for a moment how different your vibration is depending on whether you are worst-case scenario segment intending or segment intending by seeing what you are wanting to see.
A third way you might be segment intending against yourself is related to what-is.
Are you letting what-is dominant the vibration you offer?
Let’s say you have been wanting more financial abundance. You would like to experience more prosperity, more abundance, more ease around all things money-related.
- You envision more money flowing in.
- You envision no longer talking about how expensive things are.
- You envision money in the bank and zero credit card debt.
- You envision a feeling of generosity with your resources.
But your what-is doesn’t yet reflect this desired abundance. What has manifested in your physical reality does not yet reflect your desired abundance.
Are you segment intending against yourself by focusing on what-is? Are you segment intending against yourself by offering the vibration of what-is?
“Offer a vibration that matches your desire rather than offering a vibration that keeps matching what-is.” —Abraham
If you can only approach the segments of your day through the lens of what-is, through the vibration of what-is, then you can only create more of the same.
This means if what-is isn’t what you want, you must offer a different vibration. To create what you want, you must offer a vibration that aligns with what you want, not with what-is.
Too many of us are segment intending against ourselves all day long because we have been taught to face reality, trained to face reality, told to face reality.
“Many around you want to point out “reality” to you. They say, ‘Face the facts. Look at what-is.’ And we say to you, if you are able to see only what-is—then, by Law of Attraction, you will create only more of what-is… You must be able to put your thoughts beyond what-is in order to attract something different or something more.” —Abraham
When you segment intend, put your thoughts beyond what-is so that you offer a vibration beyond what-is. Segment intend in a way that serves you. That’s how you will attract what you want.
Moving on, another way you might be segment intending against yourself is about what-was.
In many ways, this is similar to the last one.
When you go into a new segment of your day, a new segment of your life with the old story of what happened, the old story of what was, the old story of the past, you are activating and offering that same vibration.
You are offering the vibration of what-was into that new segment.
And if you do this, if you think the thoughts and feel the feelings of what-was as you go into that new segment, only more along the lines of the old can be created.
- You go into the job interview, which is a new segment, with the what-was of the layoff you experienced six months ago.
- You go on a date, which is a new segment, with the what-was of past bad dates.
When you go into what could be a fresh, new segment with this is what happened before, this is what happened in the past as the vibration you offer, you are segment intending against yourself.
If you want and intend and expect a new story, you have to release that old story from your vibration.
Let’s go back to what Segment Intending is and why it’s a useful framework. It’s about expecting and anticipating what you want for this next segment of your life. And so it really has nothing to do with what-was.
The past is past, but not if you continue to bring the vibration of the past into your present and pre-pave your future with it.
I have found it is helpful to do one of two things with these stories of the past. Either find a way to tell a better-feeling story about what happened or simply stop telling the story altogether.
I encourage you to start noticing when you are using what-was as a lens, as a filter for the new segment you are entering. We often want to tell me the story of our past as context, as explanation, as justification, as the reason for why things now are the way they are.
But telling stories that don’t feel good to you, thinking about the past in a way that doesn’t feel good to you is not helping you create the future you want. Just the opposite. It’s like taking all that baggage from the past and shipping it into your future.
“You are actually pre-paving your future experiences constantly without even knowing you are doing so. You are continually projecting your expectations into your future experiences, and this Segment Intending process helps you to consciously consider what you are projecting—and it gives you control of your future segments.”
Are you consciously considering what you are projecting or…are you segment intending against yourself?
The whole point of Segment Intending as an LoA practice is to intend how you go into the next segment of your day.
To intend. To be intentional. To deliberately think your thoughts and offer your vibration on purpose.
I know you don’t intend to think against yourself. To feel against yourself. You would not intentionally work against yourself.
Nonetheless, as you listened to the four ways you might be segment intending against yourself, did one or more sound all too familiar?
- Are you worrying your way into your next segment?
- Are you thinking thoughts of the worst-case scenario and feeling the related low vibes?
- Are you focusing and feeling what-is when what-is isn’t what you want?
- Are you moving into your next segment offering the energy of what-was?
Have no doubt, you are pre-paving all the time. I invite you to become more intentional about the pre-paving you are doing. Segment intend for your own benefit and to your advantage. Segment intend in ways that feel good and serve you.
