Hello!
How are you?
I’m really well. I love it when a new piece of information comes to me, and changes the way I look at things. Don’t you?
The new thing for me is Flow. I’ve just finished reading a book called “The Rise of Superman” by Steven Kotler.
Here’s what it says about the book on his website (click here to watch):
Steven Kotler started researching flow after healing from Lyme’s disease through surfing.
It took him on a ten year journey following action and adventure daredevils around the world – climbing up cliffs, jumping off buildings, riding un-heard of waves, and doing impossible skateboard tricks.
What I loved about reading the book is that it gave me a whole new way of thinking about things that are really important to me.
Ever since I started my Psychosynthesis Psychotherapy training 22 years ago, I’ve been fascinated in what Maslow called “peak experiences” – times when we become One with all that is, time stands still or doesn’t exist, and we are no longer separate from what we are doing, we ARE it.
And that’s what the flow studies are all about. How we can access peak experiences more easily.
This isn’t just relevant for adventure sports people, it’s relevant for all of us.
Research shows that the utmost creativity and productivity occurs when we are in a state of flow. The books are written, the paintings created, the inventions invented, the business ventures ventured.
Kotler talks about how we can hack flow in whatever we are doing, by bringing in factors like: taking social risks; increasing the amount of novelty and complexity in our day; and using all of our senses.
He also sheds light on a vital piece of flow, which links to what I’ve been learning about procrastination.
(Click here to watch the video)
The first stage of flow is struggle.
This resonates with my new favourite quote, by Steven Pressfield, “The more important an activity is to your soul’s evolution, the more resistance you will feel towards it, and the more fear you’ll feel.”
What that has done for me, is, rather than taking resistance and struggle personally, thinking that there were old beliefs and issues for me to work through, now I just see it as the first stage of any creative endeavour.
Before I write an article, before I create a course, before I go and do Present Time with my children, there will probably be a stage of resistance and struggle. The difference now is that I just acknowledge it, and I keep on going. I don’t see that personally – it’s just a stage in flow.
Struggle happens first, then release, then flow, then recovery. (Click here to see the video)
And this relates to the two things that are so central to my passions – supporting mothers to love their lives, and encouraging mothers to share their gifts.
We can use the knowledge about flow to help both of these.
The first is knowing about the struggle phase – not taking it seriously, not stopping at that point, but keeping on going.
Another is knowing about flow triggers – what helps us move into a flow state? How can we hack what the adventure sport folks are doing?
One trigger is to take emotional risks. The skier takes physical risks as part of creating flow, but we don’t need to do that.
Simply doing something a little bit out of our comfort zone, not too much that we are paralysed by fear, but just enough to bring us alive and alert.
As a mother, this might be doing Present Time even when it feels scary and unknown.
As a creative woman, it might be sharing your blog with others, displaying your paintings, talking about your idea. Taking that step makes all the difference.
(Click here to see the next video)
Another hacking suggestion is to up the amount of novelty, complexity and unpredictability in your environment.
What a difference this can make. And I think this is particularly relevant as mothers. Life can easily be repetitive.
But by doing simple things like driving a different way to the shops, or going to a new park, brushing your teeth with your non-dominant hand, or visiting a different place, can increase our likelihood of feeling alive and energised.
Nature is inherently complex. Go and look at a tree and there you are, involved in complexity!
And the same with our creative endeavours. Doing something differently, learning new things, challenging ourselves, seeing things in new ways. All of these can help us get into flow.
And thirdly, using all of our senses to get deeply embodied. Of course, action sports people are deeply connected to heightened senses, simply to keep alive. But we can create that too. Kotler talks about how Montessori education engages multiple sensory streams.
We can do that too, in our daily lives. Becoming aware of our body and breath as we are with our child, as we are doing present time, looking at her skin and the exact colour of her hair and the pattern in her eyes. Walking barefoot on the grass. Looking at the night sky.
I am excited about finding new ways that this knowledge about flow can help us as mothers be in flow, and how we can use it to express our gifts in the world.
And one last thing? The whole thing about flow is that we go through phases of flow. We cannot always be in that peak experience state.
We need the rest state afterwards. We need to re-enter the struggle, the release, to have the flow. And after flow, comes recovery.
This means we need to rest. We need to self-nourish. We need to take time to do things that have nothing to do with aiming to be a more conscious mother, or sharing our gifts with the world.
Recovery is just as vital in the whole cycle as is flow. This is where all the new learnings are being consolidated. That is what our body and psyche needs in order to prepare for the next flow cycle.
Take time to rest and recover!
I’ve been learning so much about this in creating the courses that I am creating.
I’ve been feeling so alive and so on purpose, because I am going through these flow states.
Staying with the struggle phase. Doing things that are out of my comfort zone, setting clear goals, doing new things, learning new things, keeping at my edges.
And it has a massive difference on my day-to-day life as a mother. Because I’m in the flow, allowing the creative impulse through, learning new things, challenging myself, I am feeling energised and alive, which means I have so much more to give my children.
And there are times when I don’t too; times in that recovery phase where there is lots of resting, lots of us doing things like lying on the hammock together, chatting.
I’d love to hear if any of this information about flow resonates with you.
Much love to you,
Marion xxx