How To Go With The Flow
Recently I’ve been wrestling with the concept of flow and vulnerability. For the most part, I lean toward the overthinking side of things.
I pour over facts to make sure I have the full picture. Then I analyze those facts to determine how they fit together and how they fit into the overall landscape of life. I “think” my way through problems and hope that those thoughts will guide my steps down the “right” path.
In my head thinking in this way sounds entirely rational, sensible, and wise. We should all “think things through” before taking any action. But then there’s science.
Neuroscience tells us that we are only conscious of about 5 % of our cognitive abilities. The majority of our actions and decisions depend on the 95 % of our brain activity that goes beyond our conscious awareness.
This means that despite our efforts to make decisions by “thinking things through,” we really are only aware of about 5% of that process. The real Thinking, with a capital T, occurs unconsciously. That type of Thinking feels, senses, and remembers the right path without any assistance from our conscious mind. That Thinking also, as Steven Pressfield put it, is:
The higher level…[t]his second level is the invisible world, the plane of the as-yet-unmanifested, the sphere of pure potentiality.
Upon this level dwells that which will be, but is not yet. Call this level the Unconscious, the Soul, the Self, the Superconscious.
In other words, that 95% of unconscious brain activity provides the key to being in the flow of life.
As Oprah explains “there is flow with your name on it. Your job is to find that flow and let it carry you to the next level.” Allowing your superconscious mind to do its thing will put you in that flow. You’ve found the holy grail and are headed to the next level.
So Why Then Isn’t Everyone In Flow?
The reason most of us aren’t in flow is that we have no idea how to access that unconscious 95% of our brain. How do you follow something that you can’t consciously interpret?
In my view, we access that part of our brain through our emotions.
Our feelings are the access portal to Thinking with a capital T. If we were poker players, our emotions would be our tells. If we were Batman, our feelings would be the bat signal in the sky directing us to the next location. Our feelings show us where the flow is, how to get there, and how to go with it.
To access our emotions, we need to do two things:
1) quiet our conscious minds so that we can
2) feel and express our feelings.
If you are like me, you are already rolling your eyes at that sentence. Feeling and expressing emotions can be annoying AF.
It requires that we admit to others, and to ourselves, that we are scared, happy, sad, mad, glad, grateful, or fearful instead of the always projecting a positive and upbeat image. That can feel like hanging onto the edge of a cliff.
If people know how we really feel, they have the ammo they need to gossip about us, hurt us, or otherwise make us feel ashamed. When we feel and express our emotions in the face of those possibilities, we hang on to that cliff trusting that we won’t fall.
The truth is those thoughts of fear and shame are ego-based resistance. Our ego operates in the conscious world and is designed to keep us safe. Because the flow lies in the unconscious, unknown realm, our ego creates thoughts of shame and fear to stop us from the dangers of that hidden world.
To overcome the ego and find the flow anyway, we must take the time to really feel our emotions and let the guidance from those feelings usher us to the next level.
In truth, that is our only job in life. We must get quiet and listen for the flow. Once we hear it, we must set our intention daily to follow that stream while arming ourselves to fight the resistance that will surely come.
That is going with the flow. It is simple but not easy.
Have you ever felt like you were going with the flow? What techniques did you use to overcome resistance and follow the flow? Let me know in the comments below.