Journal of Sacred Work

   We can access incredible energy, as occurs with the Flow phenomenon, if we work hard, stay focused, stay committed, and have the wisdom to know when to let go and let Love takeover.
-Erie Chapman

   Sometimes, seemingly from nowhere, an astonishing kind of energy will arrive in our lives. Things we thought would always require hard struggle suddenly (and all to briefly) become easy for us. The phenomenon, dubbed "Flow" by a famous psychologist with a complex name Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi, typically occurs after we’ve been struggling for a long time to master something important to us.
   Athletes call the experience "being in the zone." But I have heard caregivers use similar terminology in their work. A gifted surgeon may say the he or she entered the zone in the middle of a complex surgery. Suddenly, a challenging surgery becomes easy and the doctor discovers all of his or her skills and gifts coming together in perfect harmony.  Another caregiver may notice the same thing in the course of looking after a difficult patient. As they find themselves fighting to control the problem before them, they suddenly experience a serenity that enables them to make all the right moves with complete grace…

   Those who have chosen to study the Flow experience have learned some things all of us can use if we seek to increase the chance for Flow in our work and with our teams.*

1) Flow is more likely to occur when we have first engaged a great effort and full commitment to learn mastery of a set of skills. At the peak of frustration, and after hard effort, the reward of Flow may arrive. Those who have experienced it describe it as effort followed by a kind of letting go.
2) The Flow experience has been described (somewhat embarrassingly) as not unlike a good experience of sexual intercourse. There is a build up of tension, an effort toward relieving that tension, and then a release – a letting go.
3) Flow is more often experienced by those who make a sustained commitment to mastery and is rarely experienced by those who make little or no effort. The Flow experience appears to be limited exclusively to those who work hard at achieving success.

   About twenty years ago, I was watching a Boston Celtics basketball game. it was the
heyday of the great Larry Byrd. As Byrd was dribbling the ball down the court, the "color" announcer said something I’ll never forget. "Watching Byrd," he said, "reminds me of a story about the pianist Vladimir Horowitz."
   "Horowitz?" the play -by-play announcer asked, confused.
   "Horowitz," the color man continued, "was dreaming that he was playing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto #3 perfectly. He was in the first movement when the phone rang, waking him. He talked on the phone for about twenty minutes. When he hung up, he realized to his amazement that he was in third movement. His mind had continued to play the concerto perfectly and he hadn’t even been aware of it!"
   "I don’t get it," his partner said. "What does that have to do with Larry Byrd.
   "Larry Byrd is like all great performers. In his case, Byrd is playing basketball all the time. No matter what he is doing, his subconscious mind is always playing the game he loves."
    If we seek the astonishing experience of "Flow" it will require that we make a deep and enduring commitment to something we love. When we do this, Flow is still not guaranteed, but we have maximized the conditions for it to occur. And when it does, we know in that moment that all the hard work was worthwhile.
   The seeming exception to this rule is not an exception at all. It is the kind of story that appears periodically in the news. A five-foot, one-hundred-pound mother will suddenly pick up a full-sized automobile. Where did she get such strength? The answer is that her child is caught under the wheel. Suddenly, from some unknown place, an extraordinary flow energy is engaged. Once the child is free, the woman has no more ability to pick up the car than do you or I. But the circumstance proves that the energy has always been hidden there, waiting for the right stimulus to awaken it.
   Within you, and within your team, is the potential for you to engage healing energy far beyond your imagination. The concept of Flow teaches us that it requires hard work to have a chance of accessing this energy. It also teaches us to have faith in our capability to open the door to the energy of Love and then to let go of ego so that this energy can flow through us.

-Erie Chapman

*Flow is so named because during Csikszentmihalyi’s 1975 interviews several
people described their ‘flow’ experiences using the metaphor of a current
carrying them along. For those who seek a more elaborate description of Flow factors, here is Csikszentmihalyi’s summary:

1. Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernable).
2. Concentrating and focusing, a high degree of concentration on a
   limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the
   opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).
3. A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action
   and awareness.
4. Distorted sense of time – one’s subjective experience of time is
   altered.
5. Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course
   of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).
6. Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither
   too easy nor too difficult).
7. A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
8. The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an
   effortlessness of action.