Radical: CONSCIOUSNESS
"We are all pilgrims on an elusive and endless road... Despite our attempts to build lives on stone foundations, our spirits continuously flow. Endless streams of consciousness ripple through our minds." ~Anthony Lawlor
Tapping In, Hopscotch Style
Confession: I’m a knowledge junkie.
Reading is more than an occasional pastime for me; it’s an obsession. I gather and organize ideas, concepts, and bits of wisdom that I find interesting or useful, like butterflies pinned in a display case. Keeping them cataloged helps me return to and study them for clues about becoming a better citizen of the world.
This passion makes perfect sense after discovering that my top CliftonStrength is Input - a need to collect and archive.
As a child, I was a shy, slow learner. I come from a blended family, and we moved several times during my grade school years. In the shuffle from place to place, friends were transient in my life. Transferring between school curriculums posed challenges in learning. Because of this, reading remained out of my reach until I was seven years old. However, once I got it, nothing could stop me from consuming books. They were my portal to exotic worlds full of adventure and steadfast friends.
Although I didn’t understand it at the time, reading was my first experience with flow.
During flow you have an expanded awareness of self and a feeling of oneness with everything in equal turn. Your inner critic dials down, and your imagination opens up, free to make novel connections. Your ego dissipates. Time bends and stretches, slowing down when immersed in this deep-focus state but, as you emerge, hours will have seemed to have passed by in mere minutes. This is time dilation. The lingering effect of a flow state stitches a sense of purpose, freedom, connectedness, and empathy into the fabric of your life.
Flow amplifies your conscious nowness. It’s a dynamic state of fluid and effortless focused attention with curiosity in the driver’s seat.
When you’re in a state of flow, your body releases a potent cocktail of feel-good neurochemicals: dopamine, norepinephrine, endorphins, anandamide, serotonin, and oxytocin. It’s the only state where you get all six of these at once. Each is perfectly balanced and delivers an addictive hit that enhances your experience and keeps you craving more.
One of the most effective ways to drop into this beautiful state of deep fulfillment is to learn to turn off your inner critic and prefrontal cortex, the decision-making part of your brain. When silenced, flow is automatic and easy.
Mindful activities, such as breathwork, are a way in. By learning to intentionally and habitually turn off the over-thinking, over-analyzing, ego-driven part of your brain, peak experiences will naturally follow.
The art and science of liberating your flow state begins with your ability to disengage the mind. As your brain waves slow to a frequency between Alpha (daydreaming) and Theta (meditating), you prime yourself to have more aha moments. This fluid experience is what is so incredibly powerful and often cathartic about a breathwork experience.
Learning to be fully present is a gift that sets the stage for a flow state to happen as readily as a baby taking its first breath. Once you know this embodied practice and continue to make it a habit, the world opens up and unfolds in beautiful ways for you.
This life isn’t happening to you; IT’S HAPPENING FOR YOU.