Signs of being in the flow:
-things happen easily and go smoothly.
-intuitive feelings: when acted on, without doubt, leave you knowing that it was the right thing to do.
-contentment and joy (as opposed to excitement i.e. agitation of the mind); when there is contentment and joy there is true happiness.
The question to ask isn’t ‘How do I find the flow?’ It is ‘How do I unblock the flow?’ You are the flow. We are energy. This energy can’t be seen, we do know it though. It is the energy that says I am; the energy of pure awareness. The natural flow of us is for our energy to bubble up, like a fresh water spring, out of our consciousness and flow out into life.
Blocks to flowing:
>Awareness/Attention. When we are not ‘present’ we are not in the flow. Right now are you aware of where you are, the people around you, the sounds etc? Or is your awareness focused on your thoughts, other people, a past event, future worries etc? See where your attention is: in the past, an ‘object’ or the future.
>Fear/Loss. We say that fear is connected with the unknown. Is this true? Can we really be afraid of what we know nothing about? Fear is generated by our concern about losing what we already have, believe or know. We fear losing: position, power, pay, possessions, people, prestige etc. Can we truly hold onto any of these for ever anyway? Do you have all the same money, possessions, clothes, job, house, people in your life as you did 5, 10 or 20 years ago? Life is change; flow. In working to hold on to any of these things we resist the flow. Everything comes and goes: our thoughts, memories, events and people.
>Beliefs/Perceptions. A belief we hold may be blocking our energy. Any negative perception we have about someone, such as, they are an ‘idiot’ blocks our energy. We can also have beliefs about the world, such as, the world is a dangerous place: we see threat everywhere; we put our barriers up; we go behind our defence system and hope that nothing can get in. This also means that nothing can flow out and there is anxiety, agitation and fear.
>Pre-Occupied/Attachment. A sign: your thoughts wonder off to someone or something else. The ‘thing’ we are attached to shapes our thinking.; its image comes into our mind and shapes out thoughts. We are pre-occupied and if someone attaches what we are attached to we react. The price we pay is emotion; a disturbance in our consciousness.
>Emotions. When we are emotional we are trapped in the hurricane gusting in our consciousness. When emotional we can only feel the emotion; our energy is trapped and spinning; we can’t choose to feel otherwise in that moment.
>Worrying about the future. We create a catastrophic image of future to frighten ourselves with.
>Living in the future. Maybe I am an achiever i.e. always chasing the next goal. We may have a little rest in-between goals, before long though we need the next one.
>Desiring/Wanting. Our energy and attention all go towards the object of our desire; we cant concentrate on anything else and our consciousness is blocked by the object we want. The dreamer: dreamers don’t want anything but they are not living in the now and not in the flow.
Rivers are meant to flow.
What happens if you try to dam a river? Pressure builds up behind the dam… When we try to dam the flow we are forgetting that the law of life is flow. Take the water cycle or the carbon cycle, does this ever stop cycling? We are meant to flow; the nature of life is flow.
The secret of re-entering the flow is to detach i.e. to stay free in our consciousness from the attachments that block us. Free we can come out of living in our minds and journey back to our centre where we re-discover the pure energies we are; of peace, love, joy, wisdom and power. No longer trapped these energies can now flow out to meet the moment; this is living in the flow.
