Finding Flow When You Feel Insecure
Making friends with the unknown
Accepting that things are uncertain can feel terrifying. But what if we can make friends with the unknown?
This is what living in flow is about. When we accept uncertainty, we let go of our attachment, and we have a greater chance to live life fully. Flow makes you a child of the universe again. It shows you that your inner foundation is what matters most. How resilient are you when you are not certain of the way forward? We are reminded now that the outer foundation was never stable; it has always been the inner foundation that matters.
How do we strengthen the inner foundation? What worked yesterday may not work today. Synchronicity insists on novelty. Have you ever successfully asked someone out on a date one time, and then tried the same approach for the second date and it doesn’t work?
Have you solved a problem with one client one way, only to find that your method doesn’t work for the next client?
Life is offering us a chance to release our grip on knowing and predicting, and become more in touch with what is happening in the moment.
My daughter is on Spring break, in quarantine, and came to me in the middle of the work day to ask if we could finish a movie we were watching (the original 1964 Peter Sellers Pink Panther). I said no, we’d watch the movie in the evening. But as my work day continued, I felt my stress rising, and I really wanted to watch the movie. So we sat down together, and I have to say, it uplifted my whole day!
The next day, I wanted to repeat the spontaneity that got me into flow the day before. But at the moment when it seemed possible, my wife suggested that we go out together as a family to get some exercise. But I felt myself attached to watching a movie. It had helped me get into flow yesterday, so why not today? If I had pushed for a movie instead, it would not have lived up to yesterday's experience, and would have been in conflict with the needs of others.
What will work for me, today?
When we are really in the zone, we are not trying to reproduce what made us happy yesterday. We are watching for the place where happiness is hiding today. We are not boxing beauty into the forms we already know of—the old music collection, or the TV series that takes us back to the day—we have eyes instead for the beauty our life is showing us right now.
As children, we experienced flow naturally. As adults, we still have the right to that experience. Keep asking yourself, “What feels like the best action, right now? What will bring more joy, right now?”
Through practicing flow, you can find greater stability even as you welcome more uncertainty into your life.