Embodying Intention

Linda Sechrist

Prior to the new year of 2026, I recalled watching and listening to several podcasts I had discovered that piqued my interest and sparked new ideas. Several of them were interviews with Stephan Schwartz (StephanASchwartz.com), who has spent most of his life exploring extraordinary human functioning and how individuals and small groups can—and have—effected social change. An experimentalist in parapsychology, he was also responsible for developing remote viewing for the military.

The result of his decades of experience has led him to the conclusion that all life is interconnected and interdependent, and that our best chance of effecting social change lies in a group of committed people forming an intention for the well-being of all humanity and focusing on it intensely and consistently. This reminded me of a quote by Margaret Mead, the great anthropologist: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Schwartz often cites examples such as the cessation of smoking and the civil rights movement.

On January 3, during a visit to see my brother, I arrived at Harry Reid International Airport, which services more than 30 airlines. It is a massive airport, reminiscent of a beehive, abuzz with more people than I’d seen anywhere except the Rome airport. Unfortunately, I made a huge faux pas when I landed and collected my luggage—I picked up the wrong suitcase. I was in a hurry to meet my brother, and the bag was the same color as mine and felt like it weighed about the same 47 pounds. After a very long walk from the arrival gate to baggage claim, and then another long walk to passenger pickup, I didn’t notice anything was wrong until hours later, after arriving at my brother’s home and having dinner. By then, five hours had passed.

When I finally opened the suitcase, I found nothing familiar. The bag I had taken belonged to a man named Michael Turner.

To make a long story short: don’t ever lose your luggage when flying Breeze Airlines. Their flights are always on time, sometimes even early, and their flight attendants are courteous and personable—but trying to navigate their website to find information on lost or unclaimed baggage is another matter entirely. After nearly two hours of searching through every category we could find, we decided to return to the airport the following day. There is no customer service phone number; everything is handled online.

That night, I went to bed determined to focus my intention on getting my bag back—though it initially felt more like wishful thinking. Focus has always been a challenge for me. I’ve been a multitasker my entire life, often working on three things at once. When I’m nervous, it becomes almost impossible to focus on a single outcome; my mind races through worst-case scenarios.

Still, that night I imagined, heard, visualized, and felt the reunion in my body. I repeated the process when I woke the next morning and again during the drive to the airport.

The magic happened when we arrived. It was unbelievably astonishing. That huge terminal, usually packed with people, was practically empty, and there was no one in line at the Breeze check-in desk. This allowed Awa, the personable woman at the counter, to give my situation her full attention—after I explained what had happened and after her initial rebuttal that I should have gone to the website and filed a claim under the “guest empowerment” category. Twenty minutes later, another Breeze employee reunited me with my bag.

It was exactly what I needed—something that proved to me, in a deeply personal way, how intense focus on intention works in my life. It was no longer just someone else’s theory, or something I had been reading about for years. It was embodied knowledge. I knew what that intention felt like in my body, not just in my head. I had heard the Breeze employee helping me, visualized my bag being returned, and felt the experience as it unfolded.

Schwartz says that social transformation becomes possible through intention combined with a strategy of beingness—one fostered by choosing life-affirming options that support well-being and cultivate compassion. These are capacities we all possess and can direct toward the good of all.

That night, a little more magic appeared. I dreamed I was flying—not in a plane, but by my own will. It was the kind of dream I hadn’t had in a long time, and I took it as an affirmation.