Inner Work

For the week of January 28, 2013

Flow

(Learning to Be: Part 11)

We all know and cherish moments, or even whole days, when our life just flows, smoothly and sweetly, when things are fine just as they are. Contrasting those days with our usual ups and downs, we can ask: what makes the difference? At first it might seem that our days of harmony are days without bumps, without big problems coming at us. But we have many days without big problems, yet they do not all flow. So the crux of the difference is not in our environment. The difference is us: do we interfere with the flow? Do we create our own disturbances? Do we get lost in and chewed up by our life?

Well, yes. Some of that is obvious. Take our overwrought emotional reactions of anger, fear, jealousy and the like. Something in our environment strikes us and our emotions react to let us know the event might be significant. What follows is crucial. If we try to push that emotion away, it comes back in full and extended force. If we lock onto it and let our thoughts join the action by going round and round about the emotional event, then we are nurturing that identification and lose our peace. If, however, we are present at the start, remain in presence, take full notice of our emotional reaction as it arises, and stay aware of it without encouraging or rejecting it, then we may find that it quickly subsides and that our life can flow once more, even when we need to take some action in response to whatever instigated this latest emotive storm.

When we talk about being “in the flow,” what is it that flows? We are familiar with the notion of the stream of consciousness. But what we really mean by that is the stream of the contents of consciousness. Time marches and brings with it an endless and seamless series of events, of sensory perceptions, thoughts, emotions, and actions. When we are in that stream, we get identified with it and we are no longer in consciousness, just in its contents. In that circumstance, the stream pushes us around. We careen from one thought to another, to an emotional reaction, to a sight or sound, each taking us over for its time. The stream may be flowing through consciousness, but we are not flowing, we are on a jagged path through our day.

To remedy this we need to return to consciousness, to being, to allowing the stream to flow through us, while we stay rooted in the present, in presence, on the conscious banks of the stream. By allowing and accepting life as it is and ourselves as we are, the contents of the stream no longer grab us, no longer push us around. To live in flow does not mean that we are flowing, it means that the stream of life is flowing right through us, without being blocked, dammed up, or ignored by us. For that to happen, we enlarge our inner space.

This requires living in awareness and acceptance, living in time while maintaining contact with the timeless. The roadblocks to living in the flow are like kinks in time. Contact with the timeless, with consciousness and beyond, helps us rise above time, above the kinks. We accept our difficulties and challenges because we live in a place where we can accept them, accept our life, and accept ourselves. That place is the timeless heart of presence.

Acceptance means appreciating our life and being content with our situation. Acceptance does not require us to settle reluctantly for what we don’t want, because acceptance does not preclude working to improve our self or our situation. Appreciation and contentment are essential for a happy, flowing life, as is engagement in improving, creating, or serving. Contentment and equanimity cut the cord of desire and leave us free to live in joy.

Flow is our natural state. But our ordinary state is one where we grab onto, push away from, or react to the contents of the stream. We stop the flow thereby. When we can be, just be, the flow goes of its own accord, our life just flows, and we flow through it.

There are also special circumstances that enhance our opportunity for flow. Engaging in creative action, for example in the arts, certainly can be a doorway into flow. These might include artistic painting, dance, making or listening to music, and so on, where the dancer becomes the dance, the musician becomes the music. Here the creative force acts through us; we serve as its instrument. Our ordinary I, our ego, vanishes for those moments, as we let it go and enter the higher stream of the creative.

For this week, look at what blocks the flow of your life: not the external blocks, but the inner attitudes and reactions that block it. These are like clouds passing through our mind and if we follow them and give them energy, they become storms that stop our flow. Let them pass and stop fighting your life. Accept, be present, and live in the flow.

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