by Holly Erin Copeland

When was the last time you were “in the zone” or “in the flow” and how did it feel? You might have described it as “effortless and timeless.” Most people have heard about and even experienced flow states — an optimal and even magical state of being where deep absorption in an activity results in an effortless way of being. No trying. No time. No separate self.

The dancer becomes the dance. The actor becomes the play. The singer becomes the song. Even the mystical Star Wars Jedi order know flow states — Yoda said, “Do or do not. There is no try.”

A child of the 70s, I grew up with these Jedi ideals and heard this phrase over and over again. But it wasn’t until I was introduced to the core teachings of non-dual awareness that all the pieces fell into place and Yoda’s admonition weren’t just nice words to strive for, but actually my daily lived experience of living in the flow of life without the struggle ending each day tired only to wake up and rinse repeat the next day.

Living in flow is a major operating system upgrade. We shift from the software of the current operating system to a liveware-based operating system. Liveware is a brilliant term coined by David Engleman, author of Livewired. Liveware is self-correcting machinery that adjusts and adapts to whatever is required for optimal functioning.

Living in flow is reorienting to the liveware within you that is already installed — you just haven’t activated it yet.

But how do we activate liveware and make this significant upgrade to living in flow?

Living in Flow

At the most fundamental level, flow states arise from a shift in consciousness where being and doing become one and where physiologically, the heart and brain come into coherence. It’s true that this seamless being-doing state can be triggered by activities like sports and music, and for that reason, flow in the western understanding has most often been described as a temporary state to attain or a “peak” state.

Renowned positive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi described flow states in 1975 with eight characteristics of flow, including: a sense of effortlessness and ease while in deep concentration, a merging of actions and awareness and a sense of timelessness.

However, an alternative way to view the modern flow state is to see it as a small slice of a much larger and richer understanding of consciousness at the core of ancient Buddhist and Taoist wisdom traditions. In these traditions, flow isn’t a temporary peak state, but rather a way of living.

Taoism introduced the concept of Wu Wei. In Wu Wei, life unfolds in a continual state of flow in effortless action and non-doing — you cease trying to control events and surrender to the natural intelligence and order of the universe.

Action arises naturally in alignment with a kind of internal compass that directs the next right movement. Thinking — the exhausting process of trying to mentally figure everything out and the next thing to do — virtually disappears (or becomes just a faint background suggestion). It feels like inexplicable guidance from an inner truth or deeper knowing.

“Those who flow as life flows know they need no other force” -Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

In this state it feels as though there is a union between consciousness and the movement of subtle energy (also called vital force or chi) within the body. When we orient to the union of consciousness and subtle energy, we activate our inner liveware, adjusting and adapting to situations as they arise without controlling them by the small narrative mind, and rather operating surrendered to and in concert with a higher mind.

The Nature and Science of Flow

Scientists have noticed that in a flow state there is a more complex large-scale integration and synchronization across the body. In gamers for example, flow has been linked to changes in respiratory rate and heart rate variability (Harmat et al. 2015). One of the leading scientists in this field, Dr. Rolland McCraty, describes this flow state as one of heart-brain or physiological coherence:

“Most people know what it feels like to be in harmonious state, the place where our hearts, minds and bodies are united in a feeling of wholeness. This state is often referred to as “the zone,” “flow,” “oneness,” etc. When we are in such states we typically feel connected not only to our deepest selves but to others, even to the earth itself. We call this state of internal and external connectedness “coherence.”

Students with test anxiety who were taught to regulate their physiological coherence through heart-rate variability (HRV) training, for example, improved HRV scores across all measures and exhibited reduced test anxiety and reduced negative affect after the intervention (Bradley et al. 2010).

The patterns of heart rhythm during physiological coherence look much different than during improved concentration, for example, and produce a highly ordered, sine-wave-like heart rhythm pattern with a large, narrow peak in the low frequency region of the heart rhythm centered around 0.1 Hz and “indicates system-wide resonance, increased synchronization between the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the nervous system, and entrainment between the heart rhythm pattern, respiration, and blood pressure rhythms (McCraty et al. 2009).”

And it’s not just individual coherence — scientists are now measuring the coherence of groups. People synchronize heart rates and breathing while watching a live theatre performance together and individuals co-sleeping synchronize heart rhythms. Brains of individuals working together on cooperative tasks such as completing a puzzle or piloting airplanes have also been measured to synchronize.

For Dr. Froese, a leading scientist in the field of consciousness, the implications of group coherence and inter-brain neural synchronization are utterly game-changing and point to a holistic consciousness-first model of reality. As his 2020 paper states:

“If this proposal were on the right track, our understanding of human consciousness would be profoundly transformed.”

The connection between consciousness and subtle energy operating within and around the body is being studied by scientists on the cutting edge of health and wellness. This connection points to an energetic model of health based on the flow of energy within and around the body and its relationship to consciousness:

“The fundamental significance of the interconnected nature of consciousness, primordial elements, subtle energy, and the physical body give rise to a concept of health based on a harmonious flow of life energy” (Jain et al, 2015). — Dr. Shamani Jain

Training to Live in Flow

Peak flow states are typically accessed through deep concentration and absorption in a specific activity like sports or music — that sense of being “in the zone.” During peak flow, thoughts fade away and doing becomes being.

Training to live in flow shares some aspects with peak flow, but differs in key ways. Living in flow is a process of living in an effortless state of being or as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi famously said: “Established in being, perform action.”

The question then arises: how do we “establish in being”? Our being is usually clouded over by the myriad of experiences happening in our lives. We are so awash in experience that we don’t actually know who we are. We can’t separate the knower and the known. This is similar to watching a movie and being so engrossed in a movie that we can’t see the screen.

You start by asking the question: “Am I aware?” and shift attention away from the content of experience back to the context or knower of experience. With attention held on the context — or the “I” that is knowing all experience — you turn around and see the inherent openness, peace and calm of awareness.

In my experience, establishing awareness as the essential ground of your being is the first key step to living in flow. This is best done as a daily practice many times a day from small glimpses. When practiced often over weeks and months, glimpsing awareness turns into a lived experience from awareness, which is open, unlimited and whole. From this expanded view, an interconnected, seamless flow with all experience arises.

In this critical shift, we stop trying to control life and turn to the fluid movement of consciousness as the next thing that arises within awareness. Awareness is still and everything else is moving. You have activated the new liveware OS.

“The one who observes himself finds all things unfolding in their proper time with grace and appropriateness. He relaxes inside his own silence, enjoying his harmony with all of life.” — Mooji

Can Technology Boost You Into Flow?

Through the science of neuroplasticity, we know that the brain can be trained to be more focused and calm (or other desirable qualities) at any age. So, banish outdated notions about the brain as fixed and unchangeable. This is not supported by science. The brain was built to adapt to whatever you ask of it — and neurofeedback developed back in the 1980s has been shown through thousands of studies to alter the brain in profound ways.

Through repeated daily training, you actually rewire the brain to operate from a calmer, more focused state all the time. New developments in neurofeedback allow you to apply the powerful concepts of neuroplasticity to train for and measure progress towards flow states through new wearable, inexpensive headsets.

These neurotech devices use neurofeedback often focused on the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) in the forehead region, which acts as a major hub and the receiving station for neural networks carrying information from all parts of the brain. Just like a conductor in an orchestra, the PFC determines what to pay attention to and makes sense of the barrage of information. Wearable devices like the Muse, Mendi and FocusCalm train attention by measuring activity in the brain and then providing audio and video feedback (neurofeedback) to guide the user into a calm, focused state.

For the past two years, I’ve used the Muse headband, an EEG neurofeedback device, to track about 1000 meditation sessions. When in deep absorption meditation on the breath, I measured the shift from light to deep meditative absorption on the breath in flow, which feels like becoming one with the breath and the flow of life.

Technological advances and growing availability of low cost personal neurofeedback devices have the potential to help everyone reap the incredible benefits of brain training to get into flow and improve brain health.

The Planetary Implications of Living in Flow

The power of living in flow cannot be understated. And yet living in flow is ultimately about interconnectedness. That we are not separate beings with a separate consciousness but we are points of one connected consciousness — that everything is connected. Transcending the separate self to come into flow with each other is the ultimate pathway to community and global well-being.

“All of the problems we are facing right now collectivity are actually an outgrowth of not living in flow. The more we can strip away layers of conditioning as individuals and come into flow with each other, the more we also create that kind of flow and harmony in our relationships and that ripples out to the dialogues that happen between nations and in governments. — Sky Nelson Isaacs

At this challenging time with so many people suffering on our planet, collective flow and group coherence is needed more than ever. Scientists at HeartMath have established the Global Coherence Initiative to measure interconnectedness and support large numbers of people to come into coherence together. Their hypothesis is that “large numbers of people creating heart-centered states of care, love and compassion will generate a more coherent field environment that can benefit others and help offset the current planetary discord and incoherence.”

Final Thoughts

This is a pivotal and exciting time in human history where ancient wisdom of self and consciousness, technology and science are converging to provide deeper insights on who we are and what reality is. Similarly, the software and hardware of mind and body are converging into liveware.

And yet, true wisdom as individuals and communities is not found by simply taking in more information or creating some new integrative framework, but rather the noble path of recognition — of the essential self as interconnected and loving infinite consciousness.

This is what the ancient masters and sages were pointing to and the ultimate wisdom of flow.

Holly Erin Copeland – Certified Human Potential Coach and explorer of neuroscience, meditation, mind and consciousness. Learn more at: http://heartmindalchemy.com.