Why Flow State Doesn’t Last

You know the feeling.

There’s just you and your thrilling activity of choice.

Everything around you fades into nothingness.

No thoughts.

No problems.

No worries!

…Aaaaaaaaand

You’re back.

The day is almost over.

It’s Monday tomorrow.

Back to work.

There’s bills to pay.

So what happened?

Why did your bliss come to an end?

Let’s start by understanding what flow state is and how it begins.

What is flow state?

A state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter.
-Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Right.

Why does nothing else seem to matter?

Because you are so involved that there is no room in your concious experience for anything else to matter.

So you’re left with a sense of oneness. Unity. Single-pointed focus.

You may not even feel that there is somebody (you) who is focused.

There is just pure focusing.

Focus itself.

Notice how there is a lack of distracting thoughts active in the mind.

Yet when you reflect on your daily life, you can observe that you’re constantly distracted by thoughts.

There is conflict, anxiety, fear.

There is duality.

This and that.

But in flow state, there’s just this.

This moment.

Focus or die.

How flow state begins

You recognise an activity requires your full attention to survive or perform effectively.

So you choose to focus like a seagull eyeing a hot chip. Aka enter flow state.

It can feel like no choice has been made because it happens like lightning.

One minute you were chillin, nek minnit you are in another universe:

And then there was bliss.

When you boil it down, flow state is doing any activity in life without distracting thoughts present.

A thrilling activity like surfing, mountain biking, or slacklining can assist you in getting into flow state, but it isn’t necessary, nor is it sustainable.

What if you could always be in flow state?

You can!

You’ll be able to do everything you do now, minus unprompted distracting thoughts.

By adopting a meditation practice, you can train yourself to be in flow state at all times.

This is called Nirvikalpa Samadhi.

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