15/ The flow state
When I’m walking for long enough... my mind feels like it opens up and starts to flow in all the right ways.
I’ve always tried to be open and honest in my online life, and this newsletter is no exception. When I started writing these posts I aimed to release them weekly, but I’ve since struggled with that.
It’s been a few weeks since my last write-up and it got to the point that I just had to force myself to start writing some words and try to not get distracted (just before this, I opened up Twitter for a work thing and got completely distracted and went down a “Pokemon cards auctioning for ££££s” black hole 🙃).
Motivation seems to be at an all-time low at the moment; I don’t know whether I need a proper break, if it’s the start of burnout, or if it’s brain fog. Finally, though, here I am. It’s ironic considering what I want to write about.
The ever-elusive flow-state. Recently, I was writing up a newsletter for Where the Leaves Fall (where I write weekly Wednesday newsletters), and the theme was water. The first thing that came to my mind was this:
“Be formless. Shapeless. Like water. You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle…”
So goes the widely known saying voiced by martial arts icon Bruce Lee in his only known English-speaking television interview – a tape which was lost for years and rediscovered in the early 90s.
In turn, I started thinking about the flow state. It’s a term I often hear of as something to be achieved at work, a state of being that many of us pursue as the ultimate work high. We follow life hacks and pro tips until the stars align, chasing the moment everything becomes effortless and we dance with light steps along the path of productivity.
It’s not something I’ve ever thought about in relation to walking. However, thinking about flow states and going with the flow made me realise that there is a connection, that walking – especially long-distance walking – is a way that helps to bring about that “flow state” for me. That when I’m walking for long enough, or in the right landscape for how I’m feeling, my mind feels like it opens up and starts to flow in all the right ways.
And I suppose I’m not alone in that since walking is widely considered a healthy way to do exactly that, opening up our minds to new ideas and realisations or giving ourselves a much-needed break from screens, problems, and our exhausted brains.
I always write and think about how long-distance walking becomes a sort of meditation, but maybe it’s more than that. Maybe it’s more like attuning yourself to a more natural flow by following something physically continuous, whether that's a trail, road, river, ridge, or an invisible path. And when you're following that path for long enough, it becomes one extended state of flow.
Even when I stop and come back to “reality”, that flow state continues – if only for a time. As I stop moving so much, stop walking so much, that freely flowing state of mind seems to stagnate. I’ve probably answered my own question here; I don’t walk very much when I'm at home, and I go through periods of time where I barely go outside and walk at all – one downside to working from home so often is this particularly bad habit – and maybe (just maybe!) that’s why I feel so depleted right now.
Until next time,
A.
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A bit about me
Hey! I’m Ameena – a freelance writer based in London. I love to tell stories about adventure, the outdoors, and our relationship with the natural world, and by night, I’m a portrait and documentary photographer.