What it means to be in a flow state:
Popularized by positive psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Jeanne Nakamura, flow state describes a feeling where, under the right conditions, you become fully immersed in whatever you are doing.
Image @DevaVenketasamy
Through the process of being absorbed in whatever we are doing taken over by a sense of fluidity between our body, heart, soul and mind, our senses become heightened and our focus deepened into that one act of doing and being, creativity floods in effortlessly, we experience what we coin as the “flow state”. We are literally flowing through each stage with ease while the knowingness of the unknown ahead has little if not no grip on us.
Have you ever experience a “flow state”? (know that this is subjective to how you define flow state and it does not have to be what I wrote)
If I was to peep into your inside world, what will I see, hear, feel and witness of your “flow state”?
While I gave my description of the “flow state”, how would you define your “flow state”? (Think about the qualities, the nuances, the sounds, the sensations, the words, the colours and anything that may come to you.)
Where do we begin if we are to consciously move into the “flow state”?
We start with clarity on our intention and from our intention, we move into action.
It seems easy but often the intention part is the tedious drilling and once we move through this, we are able to see beyond.
How does this apply to our lives?
Last week, one of my clients said these,
“I feel out of flow.
I want to be in flow.
I want to experience being in flow again and again.”
This conversation got me thinking deep as what it means to be in the “flow state” in our day to day and I questioned,
What does it mean to be in the flow state?
What if we are limiting the flow state to “mainstream-positivism” only?
What if through our blinkers we are bypassing truths opening up to, for, through and within us?
If I were to shift my current definition of the “flow state”, what will I see, feel and hear otherwise that I am yet to see, feel and hear?
Here my whispers:
I have heard myself and many cried about being “out of flow” when wounds, pains, trauma, tears, fears, challenges, blockages and troubles show up.
We are quick to coin such situations as being “out of flow”, that is, not in the flow state.
If being in the flow state equates to being immersed in life, receiving, witnessing, giving, easing through then I believe that the flow state opens us readily to that which we have kept hidden for years and lives.
Do not curse the wounds, pains, trauma, tears, fears, challenges, blockages and troubles easily. The wounds, pains, trauma, tears, fears, challenges, blockages and troubles are part and parcel of dancing with life through the flow state.
As we deepen our immersion in life, we are bound to come face to face with the shadow self, the unspoken part of self. This happens only when one is in the flow state. Those of us who are descending inwards know this stage of meeting the shunned self, that part which brings in another level of awareness, growth, opening and humility.
To be flow is to move.
To move is to shuffle.
Shuffling brings its ounce of chaos.
Chaos precedes any creative process.
What has shifted in your awareness? What are you present to right here right now?
Do you still see, feel and hear the flow state as before?
How would you define the “flow state” now?
Being in the flow state also means welcoming the discomfort..
Welcoming the discomfort and consciously choosing to create from there.
What do we do when wounds, pains, trauma, tears, fears, challenges, blockages and troubles show up?
We stay open. We keep the heart open. We become present to the inner conversations.
We pause and ask:
What is showing up for me?
What is my priority need?
How can I support myself?
If I ever to use this energy that has showed up for, to,through and within me, what can I create that will nurture my life and impact beyond my life?
This is my lesson from last year. If my inner victim shows up, I hold space for her but I am intentional in staying open to life, no matter how scared I am, I stay open.
Humans are open by default, for we belong even when we crave for belongingness, we already belong.
We are always in the flow state, our intention tells us of our focus.
Check our intention and change the quality of flow state we experience.
We are in the flow state connected to our intention.
As we march one step into 2020, May we be grounded in our intention.
May clarity usher through, within, to and for us.
May we remember that even the ugly, the dirty, the pains, the tearing, the tearful, the fearful are part and parcel of being in the flow state.
Love from my heart to yours
Megha Venketasamy
Image source: @DevaVenketasamy Post © Megha Venketasamy, 2020. All rights reserved.
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