Describing My Experiences With Flow States
by Sueños on 04/14/17
As an avid adventurer and adrenaline junkie, I've found myself having experienced states of flow quite frequently. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, it's more colloquially known as "being in the zone." It's a type of absorption truly unlike anything else. It's like your cognition and actions merge into a single action. Kind of like when you type a sentence. As you think of what you should say next, your fingers are informed of what keys to hit and the sentence appears.
With flow, however, it's a much more perplexing phenomenon. It's in a sense a way of letting go, and trusting your mind and body to work properly as one. I really honed the skill during my martial arts training. Each student would line up in front of the black belts with their hands at their sides. The black belt would then strike you randomly(not hard more like a gentle tap). The aim was really to test your reflexes, and if you got hit, you were doing push-ups. Class after class everyone would block their strike no problem. Everyone that is, except for me. After about 100 or so my sensei gave me this advice, "Do not think about blocking, just block." Which, at the time, seemed like quite possibly the least helpful advice I'd ever received. However, the black belt doing the striking had gotten the memo too. I walked up to him, and before I could properly prepare myself he struck. With no issue I blocked his punch.
It's a total absence of anticipation and complete dedication to the moment. Now it's important to find activities you can do to activate these states, because you can use them to your benefit outside of that context. They don't necessarily have to active either! I know a lot of people experience these states when they do something incredibly meticulous, like coloring intricate mandalas or even knitting a scarf.
A lot of people talk about meditation as way to induce this state through a sort of self hypnotizing. I've found this especially true when I apply it to my snowboarding. I really enjoy riding in the trees because it's almost always full of fresh snow. This is due to the large and obvious amount of danger that comes with riding 20-30 mph in densely wooded areas. If I don't meditate before I ride, I will with some degree of certainty catch my shoulder on a branch and end up face first in a decent amount of snow. However, if I take a moment to meditate beforehand, it's almost an instant flow state.
I hope this gave you some insight into what is quickly becoming the latest buzzword in positive psychology. If you've experienced a state of flow, I'd be really interested in reading about your experiences in the comments below. As always, thanks for reading, and if you like this article, feel free to share!
This is a guest post by one of our coaches Diego-Andreas. If you like this post, and want to read more like it, check out his blog at www.wonderingintomyself.com
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