Living with Intent

February 16, 2015
In this self-help memoir, Chopra (100 Promises To My Baby) chronicles her year-long exploration of intent—namely, the intention to live a more meaningful life. Intent here also refers to her website (intent.com) and blog (intentblog.com), and as an acronym for “incubate, notice, trust, express, nurture, and take action,” the stages of her journey. She devotes a chapter with reflections and practices to the lessons of each step, along with a “cheat sheet,” journal pages, and graphic organizers. She also includes words of wisdom from famous healers including Eckhart Tolle, Marianne Williamson, and Deepak Chopra (her father). Despite Chopra’s family fame, she comes across as a relatable working mom, forever pulled in several directions at once and feeling “guilty about giving something short shrift.” Readers will probably welcome the news that even she struggles to integrate meditation, healthy eating, and regular exercise into her routines. The underlying question plaguing her is also familiar: how to balance personal desires against family and cultural pressure to “fulfill larger-than-life intents.” There’s nothing groundbreaking in Chopra’s memoir, but it’s enjoyable all the same. Agent: Linda Loewenthal, David Black Agency.

February 1, 2015
A lightweight self-help book about living the life you want."Intents," writes Chopra, daughter of Deepak, are expressions of who we aspire to be...[and] are a way of defining what we want and asking the universe or God for help." Her book, written mainly in the present tense, focuses on her own recent period of resolve to live "with intent." Finding an acronym in the word "intent," Chopra divides her work into six sections: Incubate, Notice, Trust, Express, Nurture and Take Action. She presents herself as a stereotypically harried, suburban soccer mom, prone to guilt, stress and self-image issues. The story she shares is her own attempt to redefine her priorities, and she herself becomes one of those priorities. Indeed, the author is the center of this book, and her presence often overshadows the advice given. Chopra takes readers on a wide-ranging tour of intent-related concepts, beginning with meditation, a practice which, in many ways, is foundational to intentional living. She also discusses the importance of putting intents into words, expressing them and sharing them with others. She espouses the practice of nurture, but it's less the nurturing of others than the nurturing of self. Indeed, though Chopra pays lip service to asking, "How can I serve?" she comes off as self-absorbed. In one instance, a family friend is diagnosed with cancer. The author's common reaction is, "If this happened to one of us, how would we handle it?" On a trip to India to visit aging relatives, she wallowed in their fawning nurture. Upon arriving home, she was overwhelmed with stress by her first conversation with her family: "Later, while lying in bed, I try to figure out why I felt so instantly tense, and I realize their stories triggered that all-too familiar toxic cocktail of guilt and worry." Chopra is the main character in her own minimelodrama.

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