We often hear how important it is to “be in the flow” and
that if we could somehow consistently be in this state, we could fully show up
and enjoy our lives. We could finally take the risk of leading with intimacy,
share our vulnerability, feel truly connected, and step all the way into the
miracle we sense is unfolding here. We could dance in relationship with that
part of the spectrum that we prefer, safe and free from other, less wanted
feelings and experiences.
“Getting into” the flow and “staying in it” has become a
goal, somewhat akin to “being in the present moment,” which while being poetic
and potentially inspirational, is also a tool of shame and aggression for many,
as they inevitably fail to live up to the demands of a conceptual spirituality.
While there may be power in “now,” there seems to be very little power in the
concept of now.
As we explore this in a way that is embodied and rooted in
the actuality of the present, we may discover that it is not actually possible,
at an experiential level, to be “outside” the flow. We are always in the flow
of life. The idea that there is some “us” on one side and some thing called
“flow” on the other that is the great trance that seems to be unique to the
human experience. It is difficult to imagine a tree or the moon or a deer
wondering if it is “in the flow” or not.
Usually, when we talk about being “in the flow,” what we
mean is that we like the thoughts, feelings, and sensations arising in our
experience. Or, our families, societies, and even our spiritual teachers have
told us that these experiences are the “right” ones. If we have more
vulnerable, intense, “unspiritual,” or contradictory feelings, we deem this as
accurate evidence that we are “out of the flow.”
We have a difficult time tolerating ambiguity and in
response often move quickly in the attempt to resolve it, lest we have to stay
close to the paradoxical nature of reality and the fact that the emotional
world is a dizzying field of alive and contradictory energies, rarely
conforming to our need for control and consistency. It is from this inability
to hold, contain, and tolerate the tension of the opposites that
self-aggression takes root and flowers, and the dream of abandoning the
“non-flow” to return to the flow as quickly as possible is born.
But if what we mean by “the flow” is a natural state of
freedom, aliveness, and wholeness—the uncaused and already-existing reality of
our true nature as open, spacious awareness—then this process of preference and
abandonment is not the flow. It is a prison, actually, the fantasy of
“returning” to a state of flow. This dream becomes the foundation of a life of
struggle and unnecessary suffering.
Perhaps it is only in the willingness to fully participate
in our present experience, exactly as it is, that the always already nature of
flow will be revealed. Flow is not something you will one day arrive at as some
sort of acquisition when you line up all of the right experiences, successfully
abandoning and replacing what is here with something else. The flow is here
right now, utterly inseparable from what you are, and is revealed by way of
your commitment to close, empathic self-attunement, rooted in curiosity and
self-care.
When you are willing to bring warmth and presence to
whatever is arising in the immediacy of now, the question of how to feel more
flow ceases to arise. Or even if it does appear from time to time, it passes
loosely through you, like a knife through warm butter. By the time you
recognize it, it has vanished and no longer lingers as yet another
self-improvement project that you must first complete before you can fully
participate here.
You are already fully alive, and the flow is everywhere.
From this perspective, the distinction between “flow” and “non-flow” falls
away, and all you are left with is what you already are, which is complete and
not lacking in or “outside” anything.
