A GUIDE TO FLOW

Coined by Harvard Law professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the term “Flow” describes a state in which you feel at your best and perform at your best – a focussed mental state conducive to productivity and high performance. Not something that you can seek to achieve or practice, Flow cannot be turned on or off – it is a specific process, an inherent state of being. Flow is part of a sub collection of NOSC (Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness), such as dreaming, mediation and breath work.

Allowing for access to insights, connection and information, flow outpaces anything we can typically achieve in our everyday working consciousness or our ordinary consciousness. As a result of this, a flow State is typically associated with high and optimal performance.

When in a Flow state, specific neurochemicals are activated and the brain’s working pattern shifts, so as we move into a Flow state, our neuropsychology and neurobiology change. Flow is a ‘state of extreme situational awareness, meaning I am paying attention to much much more, and hyper-ergonomics, in the sense of friction or lack of friction between my thoughts/intentions and actions’, as Jamie Wheal defines it. Flow is typically described by those who have experienced it as ‘flowy” with “each action moving seamlessly to the next”.

When entering a flow state, the following qualities are uniformly recognised:

• SELFLESSNESS: Our sense of self disappears. 
• TIMELESSNESS: Our sense of time is affected – we are plunged into the present.  
• EFFORTLESSNESS: A sense of effortlessness occurs - we move seamlessly from one thing to the next, from one moment to the next without effort. 
• RICHNESS: What happens in flow is we seem to get/receive enhanced insight, connection and information.