Hello and Welcome

I would like to begin by saying how excited I am to be participating in this blog, “Finding Flow.” I hope that it provides everybody who participates with an opportunity for growth and leads us all down a path towards greater health, harmony, and vitality! I am equally excited about the launching of our new website, which provides a wealth of information that I hope everybody takes advantage of and benefits from.

I believe it is important at this point to introduce the concept of Flow. Flow is best described as a state of being. It is characterized as a state of increased awareness and connection to one’s self, to other people, and to the environment around us. It is a state that everybody has experienced at some point in his or her life. For an athlete, flow is often referred to as "being in the zone." But beyond that, it is a state that is experienced by artists absorbed by their work, musicians taken by their music, surgeons deeply focused on the task at hand, and computer programmers effortlessly creating new code. Effortless, absorbed, focused, oneness, wholeness, centered, grace, and many more, are all words that help describe this way of being. It has been described as the “optimal experience.”

So what is the significance of this state? Research has shown that this state not only creates greater mental and emotional wellbeing in the people who experience it, but our body responds physically as well. During times of Flow, one’s immune system increases reducing the risk of illness and disease such as colds, flu, infection, and even cancer. Further studies have shown direct correlation between the number of Flow experiences one has and how one rates his or her overall happiness and quality of life.

In his book "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience," Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, describes Flow as a state that is reached when we are faced with a challenging situation and our skill set in the area being challenged is equally high or higher. This creates a moment in time when a person must be completely focused on the challenge before them. And it is during moments such as these that Csikszentmihalyi believes one is most likely to experience a state of Flow.

I, however, believe that this state can be achieved without having to be challenged to such a degree. The challenge makes it more likely because it forces us to be fully present to the moment. When we are fully present, our mind is sharply focused and it is not distracted by the world around us, making us more likely to experience Flow. I believe these experiences have more to do with alignment than challenge. When we are in complete alignment, our body, mind, heart, and soul vibrate at a similar frequency. And there comes a moment in time when these frequencies entrain to each other such that they are all resonating at the same frequency. At this point, we can say that we are experiencing wholeness because every aspect of our being is perfectly tuned with each other. This is when we experience Flow.

The key to aligning ourselves, and thus the key to experiencing Flow, lies within the breath and within the heart. It is in the heart that our purpose in life lies and it is the breath that provides a link between our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual bodies. When we align the breath with the beating of our heart, the heart begins to emit a very strong, consistent frequency, to which the rest of our being aligns. In this way, we can use the breath to access the heart bringing more love, harmony, purpose, and Flow, into our lives!