What happening when we find ourselves in the flow? Do we need to understand this from a spiritual perspective, or can we explain it using what we know about human behavior and the human brain? To figure this out, I asked a psychologist and a neuroscientist, both of whom not only have expertise in their own fields, but who also each happen to have extensive knowledge of various philosophies, religions and practices throughout human history.
Ben Michaelis, PhD, a clinical psychologist and author of Your Next Big Thing, makes a couple of points about what’s likely going on when we get out of our own way and into the flow. The first comes from looking at the other end of the spectrum—when we’re stressed, which might be considered the polar opposite of “flow.” He points out that at these times, our thinking starts to suffer, sometimes in significant and bizarre ways. We tend to look for patterns where there are none, and draw conclusions that don’t exist.
“A lot of research looks at what happens when you’re stressed,” he says. “The study that I like a lot is the one looking at Israeli paratroopers – they had them look at these pictures that look very fuzzy. In first one, you can clearly see through fuzz, an image of Saturn. In the next, there’s nothing there, just fuzz. If you give these paratroopers these two diagrams, they see Saturn, and most will say, ‘I don’t see anything’ in the other. But if they take the test right before they do a jump, they’re much more likely to see something in the one where there is nothing.”
Website view…Maybe the above is a ‘dry view’ being in the ‘flow’ is to be in thoughtless awareness, only possible if we use a meditation technique like Sahaja Yoga. When we are away from our thoughts life flows. Shakespear wrote in Hamlet, ‘There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.’ in thinking we cannot get to the truth, ironically, as we are looking at the problem from our own science, from our own individual conditionings which are according to our upbringing, our school life, our parents are society, these all shape the way we react to our situation, some see the same situation as nothing important others see the same situation as devestating.
I don’t fully agree with the description below but I ‘get it.’
Shri Mataji talks about the ego taking you away from the flow, we are our own worst enemy
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