During Thursday’s episode, Derek briefly described Flow States in the context of a universal form of spirituality. He explores that concept in a little more depth, pulling audio from Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s 2004 TED Talk about the social ramifications of Flow States.
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Hello, Matthew here from the Conspirituality Podcast Team.
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So this is a slide that he presented during that talk called, how does it feel to be in flow?
Number one, completely involved in what we are doing, focused and concentrated.
Another way to think about that is monotasking.
Number two, a sense of ecstasy, of being outside everyday reality.
Three, great inner clarity, knowing what needs to be done and how well we are doing.
Four, knowing that the activity is doable, that our skills are adequate to the task.
That's really important.
Because if you take a task that is too easy, it's hard to get into flow state because you almost go on autopilot.
But if it's too challenging and the entire time you're struggling, you also can't achieve flow.
So there's this sense of something that is challenging, but that you know you can do it, but you might not.
It actually is going to take some work to get there.
That's one of the secrets of getting in.
5.
A sense of serenity, no worries about oneself, and a feeling of growing beyond the boundaries of the ego.
6.
Timelessness.
Thoroughly focused on the present.
Hours seem to pass by in minutes.
And finally, seven, intrinsic motivation.
Whatever produces flow becomes its own reward.
So if you love your job and you get into flow states during your job, you're not as concerned about the benefits that the job will bring you, or the money, the fame, whatever that is.
It's the actual reward is the experience of doing it itself.
Let's go back to number two, a sense of ecstasy.
Because that word is very common in wellness circles.
We have ecstatic trances and trance dances, Ananda, the ecstasy of yoga, and of course MDMA for psychedelics fans that also crosses over into the yoga world.
And I love Csikszentmihalyi because he grounds the language.
And by doing so, he makes it easier to understand without the hyperbole that tends to surround words and concepts.
Let's hear him describe it.
He starts by describing it as an ecstatic state.
Now, ecstasy in Greek meant simply to stand to the side of something.
And then it became essentially an analogy for a mental state where you feel that you are not doing your ordinary everyday routines.
So ecstasy is essentially a stepping into an alternative reality.
And it's interesting if you think about it, how when we think about the civilizations that we look up to as having been pinnacles of human achievement, whether it's China, Greece, Hindu civilization, or the Mayas, Hindu civilization, or the Mayas, or Egyptians, What we know about them is really about their ecstasies, not about their everyday life.
We know the temples they built so where people could come to experience a different reality.
We know about the circuses, the arenas, port arenas, the theaters.
These are the remains of civilizations and they are the places that people went to
