FLOW PSYCHOLOGY

Source: Understanding Flow

Indigenous cultures believed that all of nature was a single organism and that everything was connected.Signs from the Universe was a normal part of daily life, for everything from passing clouds to passing events were perceived to speak in ways that mattered.

In current times, quantum physicists have found that the boundaries that isolate one thing from another only exist within our conscious mind but when looking at deeper levels, all things-atoms, molecules, plants, animals, people—participate in a sensitive, dynamic web of information.

This interrelatedness is something for which we have an intuitive sense. Even if we have no formal beliefs about a higher power, the concept of being connected to a dynamic force beyond ourselves shows up in an ordinary, everyday phrase: “in the flow.” “Go with the flow,” we might say, or, “I’m really in the flow today.”

When we try to define flow, it is also tough to nail down. One approach is to study a readily observable aspect of it, which is what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi did in defining flow as “optimal experience, a state of concentration so focused that it amounts to absolute absorption in an activity.” In that state, which most often occurs during intense physical activity, we feel strong, alert, and at the peak of our abilities. This is connectedness—to an activity, to a moment.

Often when people speak of flow, however, they are alluding to it in a larger sense. They are speaking of a connectedness to larger patterns of events and meaning.

Flow is the natural, effortless unfolding of our life in a way that moves us toward wholeness and harmony.

Flow is natural because we personally do nothing to cause it to exist. Whether or not we give it our conscious attention, it just is. Sometimes we may hardly know it’s there but when obscured by our fear or anger it can run underground like a river. However when we move into greater awareness and trust, it emerges in all its strength and power.Flow is effortless because when we learn to swim with it, its currents move us easily, smoothly and gently through life.