How can you use movement to access the Flow state?

The context for these videos

Each post in this short series is from Alec’s weekly livestream to the Facebook group Finding the Balance with Anxiety Freedom Cards. Each week I focus upon one of our innate resources or needs as depicted in the Anxiety Freedom Cards. And the reason I’m doing this is to show you how you too can live a life free from anxiety and stress.

Please let me know what you think by scrolling to the bottom and commenting below!

Below is a direct transcript from the video shown above.

Hello again, It’s Alec here from in8, back here again for another Tuesdays, Two o’clock Topic on this 2nd of March, 2021. And today I am continuing the discussion that we started last week on the topic of our innate need for movement. One of our basic innate needs. And I may be, I will be sharing a story. I’ll also be talking about the flow state later on as well, because it’s a subject that I find quite interesting. And asking the question of whether we think it’s related to our need for movement.

So yes, one of our innate needs, this is the card that we use to represent it. This is the card that we use in therapy sessions to work as a catalyst, to invite our clients, to just tell us what this means to them. What does movement mean to them? What role does it play in their life, in their wellbeing? Last week, I covered quite a lot of ideas around the topic of movement. I want to just remind you of some of the physical forms of movement, because it’s so easy. I don’t know about you, but I, I find it so easy just to get stuck on one. I like to walk and I forget, I mean, it took me ages to remember that dancing is a really important form of movement just because I’m not really a dancer myself.

So I thought I would just run through some of the forms of movement that we know are good for us that get us exercise. I’m talking now about physical movement. So walking, running, jogging, swimming, cycling, going to the gym, using exercise machines of various sorts, dancing. As I said, there’s a lot of games these days, you know, Wi-fit and there are lots of videos on YouTube for getting moving. The Joe Wicks stuff that started in lockdown and wherever you look, there are lots of people inviting you to move your body and to, to do things that keep us fit. There’s gardening, there’s yoga, Pilates, Tai Chi, Qigong, martial arts sports such as football, tennis, squash, golf, team sports and games, hobbies like skiing, snowboarding skateboarding, and just getting moving in the most general sense, you know, a trip into town. So what’s your preferred way to move.

And when you’re working with people who are maybe feeling stuck and you know, that maybe getting their bodies moving might be useful to them, what do you suggest? Or what do they suggest to you? And are there any key areas that I’ve left out of that list? Because as I say, I tend to get stuck on the ones that I like, and it’s quite good sometimes to be reminded of the wide variety of ways we could move our body. And you may remember last week I spoke about the sea squirt. This little animal that actually, once it finds its rock on which it lives out the second part of its life, it digests it’s brain and it’s spinal cord because it’s not going to need them anymore. We have a brain because we move. It’s a vital part of our physiology.

And when we’re feeling sluggish or stuck, sometimes it can really help just to move our body physically. Feeling stuck is the more psychological aspect of the movement card. You know, sometimes we need a change of scenery as much as we need to move our bodies or get our, hearts and lungs moving, working properly.

And there’s a lovely saying by the guy name of Stuart, I’m having a mental block, Stu, Stu McLaren is cause I said Stuart rather than Stu. Stu McLaren, who is a Canadian who teaches how to run a membership. And I know that some of you watching this are in the in8 membership where we talk about these things all the time. And he says, he has a wonderful thing about getting your business up and running. He says, “You don’t have to get it right. You just have to get it going!” And I think it’s a very true statement. Sometimes we can be a bit perfectionist about waiting until we’ve got all our ducks lined up in a row before we start something new. And this idea that “you don’t have to get it right, you just have to get it going” is a really good way of moving from that static position because any movement is completely different to being stuck. And it doesn’t matter whether your movement is slow or fast. The difference between being stuck is infinite, if you like.

So this week I said that we would work through the worksheet. So I’m going to share the worksheet on screen for a moment. And it is available in the comments below this post. In fact, I could make that bigger couldn’t I, let me just see if I can make that slightly bigger. Yeah, you can download your own copy of the worksheet. If you look for the first comment below in the “Finding the balance with Anxiety Freedom Cards” Facebook group, which is where you’re watching this at the moment. I’ve put a comment with this link, to this worksheet, so you can download this. And sometimes we use it in workshops. Sometimes we use it with our clients.

I won’t read through the start of it and you can download it and read that for yourself. I just want to take you through the various questions that are here. The first one is where and when do you move your body? So we’re talking about the physical aspects here predominantly. So I invite you to just reflect on this and do it for yourself before you do it with a client or in a, in a workshop setting. Where, and when do you move your body? Just have a think about that and, and, and just write a note down.

And then the next question is how well is your need for movement met in general terms? And obviously, you know, we all face different challenges. Sometimes we have physical challenges that limit our movement, you know, if we’re wheelchair bound or whatever, moving might be, might be much more difficult, but how well do you get your need for movement met. And bear in mind the number of things that I mentioned earlier. And I didn’t mention playing a musical instrument, for instance, that’s an example of where we can be moving our, our fingers or our arms, but without huge cardiovascular input, if you like. So it may be that you get your need for movement met through playing a musical instrument. For instance, I’m really just interested to get you thinking about this topic for your own sake.

What kind of physical activity have you enjoyed in the past? So this is tapping into our innate resource of our memory and just kind of reactivating patterns of things that maybe we used to do that we’re not doing so much nowadays.

And then finally, what could you do over the next few days to enjoy the feeling that goes with that again? So it’s not necessarily about doing something the same as we used to do, but what, what gives you that same feeling? And you will know if you’ve been watching these videos for some time that I love to walk. I have a lovely circular walk that it’s about. It’s just under five miles and it goes from my door down some local streets and then into paths that lead through to woodland. And then back through the Biss Country Meadows by the river Biss, and then back through a little, a little a meadow, and it’s a lovely walk. And I do it as often as I can find time. It takes me about an hour and I use it as time for personal reflection, but it also gets my heart and my lungs going. And last time I did it, it’s very muddy in the woods at the moment.

And walking on mud is extra challenging and it’s extra tiring and I’m not feeling very fit at the moment. So last time I did that, it was a little bit of a struggle, but I like to do it often in all seasons because it gives me a real sense of perspective and it helps keep me sane really. So that’s, that’s my main mode of movement. What are yours?

And I’m just going to check the comments. We’ve got some comments here coming in. So bear with me for just moments. One from CG, I recognize the icons. Hi, beautiful day for outdoor movement today. Wonderful. Yes, it’s quite nice here though. The roads have been dry for awhile. Good afternoon. For me, it’s a change of attitudes sometimes or moving a chair for a different perspective. Absolutely important aspect of this is sometimes movement just means having a change of perspective.

As a piper, I love the marching and doing it with others. I really missed this type of movement during lockdown. That’s interesting. And as a piper, wow. I didn’t know we had a piper amongst us. And let me just see if I can see who that’s from. Cos,as I’ve said before, Facebook, doesn’t give me the information on who is, who is making these comments. I’m just refreshing the page and hopefully I’ll be able to read who’s who’s posted that. Oh, Caroline. So Caroline is a piper, love the marching and doing it with others. I’ve really missed this type of movement. Yes. Movement with others. Synchronised movement, synchronised dancing, or just a shared rapport of everybody sharing some movement is a very powerful experience. Isn’t it? So, yes. Thank you for that, Caroline. And thank you, CG for your comments as well.

So where was I? Where was I at? And so we worked through the worksheet. How you use the worksheet is completely up to you. It’s really just serves as a reminder. And when Bindi and I were, when Bindi was running the workshops for carers in bath every week, they would just use one worksheet and they would have a group of people who meet sort of over coffee and a chat it’s quite informal. And they would Bindi would take a set of cards, maybe several sets of cards and share them with the group. The group size varied from, I think, you know, sometimes it was as few as three or four people, and sometimes it was as big as eight to a dozen people. And they would just talk about one of our needs each week. And she would take the worksheet and just invite people to photocopy, you know, and multiple copies of it. And they invited people to just fill it in for themselves and just remind themselves of what movement means to them. And I think it’s quite a useful thing to do.

The other thing that I wanted to talk about though, today is just… One of the things I like about doing these topics two weeks at a time. So last week was movement. This week is movement. But the two weeks before that we’re both on pattern matching, is it gives me a chance to reflect upon the subject between the two sessions. Obviously I talk about these things a lot to a lot of people, but having a focus of me knowing I’m going to present something about it.

I was thinking about flow, the state of flow. You know, that sense that when you are really engaged in an activity and you kind of lose sense of time. And I was thinking to myself, is flow inherently connected to movement or not. I, most of the times I experience the state of flow, it, movement is involved. But there are some occasions when it isn’t specifically involved.

Somebody can’t download the last slide. Sorry, Sue me neither. Oh, right. Okay. So maybe I’ve put something wrong in that link. If I have, then bear with me, I will correct the link at the end of the session. So let me just see if I can see, I can’t see my own comment now here. Just bear with me for a moment. Movement worksheet. So are actually, there’s two posts aren’t there? There’s the live stream and there’s the actual post where I announced the live stream. So I’m hoping you can find the link. What happens if I comment on company, it works for me and that’s frustrating because it means I don’t know why you can’t access it. I will sort that out after my presentation is finished. So if several people can’t access it, there’s probably something wrong with it. So I’ll come back to that, but I will make, and we’ll absolutely make sure that you can download the worksheet if you, if you want it. So I may have to fix that after today, but let’s talk about flow.

First of all I’ll explain… well, I’ve got a definition here. So I’m just was interested to see what, what Wikipedia said about flow. So flow, it mentions the research of someone whose name I can’t pronounce. I apologise for that: Energised focus, full involvement, enjoyment in the process of the activity, complete absorption in what one does and the resulting transformation in one’s sense of time. So there’s one definition of flow. I feel I’ve been lucky in life to experience flow in a variety of situations, never for very long at a time. It’s it can, well, time gets distorted anyway, but it’s, it’s not all the way. I’m not always aware of the time in it, but you just get that flashing recognition occasionally that it’s a wonderful state to be in.

And I think my first experience of flow was playing guitar. When I was really quite young. I could certainly lose myself in the act of playing guitar and it does involve movement and, and, and a certain level of skill. But then it progressed to my bicycle. My bicycle was my sense of freedom. When I was 12 or 13 years old, I used to cycle all over the place. I would go off into the hills and I would be in a complete state of being one with the bike. I used to throw it around a bit and I used to sort of break wheels and, and be a bit reckless. It was such a joy when they invented mountain bikes, bikes that I couldn’t destroy, but my bike was an extension of my body. When I was a teenager, I was very physically active on it. And it felt like a wonderful thing to, to just immerse myself in. And I would daydream and go off into the country, into the hills and, and be gone for hours at a time.

And then when I passed my driving test for a short while, I did get a sense of flow when driving, but I didn’t think it was safe. And maybe this is why so many young men have accidents in cars when they first pass their driving test. I, I was wary of the sense of being lost in particularly in driving fast. And I decided that that wasn’t a good activity for me to be involved in and later on,

Oh, and then I got into skateboarding and that was an absolutely, that is the state of flow. You know, you’re moving, you’re flowing, it’s like a magic carpet ride. It has all the attributes of flow. And then later in life walking certainly, can get me, not always, but sometimes it can get me into that state and creative acts such as writing. And for a while, I made a living writing, writing code for programming. Now those don’t involve movement, but it’s interesting for me to think that writing there is a sense of movement within a narrative. And so I think movement is still involved in that kind of psychological way. And the coding that I was writing was to control machines, which were moving automatically and doing very complex things on a production line.

And so there’s always been a hint of movement, but I really interested to know, what do you think? Does flow connect with movement? Is it, is it allied with movement or is it really a separate thing? Do share your ideas by putting a comment in below whether you’re watching this live or whether you’re watching it on replay. Let me, let me know what you think about the relationship between flow and movement and how do you experience flow in your own life?

The more I think about flow, the more I realise how important it is for me. And since most of the ways I experience it do involve movement, I’m kind of more inclined to focus on that aspect of my need for flow, rather than my need for movement and not suggesting I’m going to change the card, but I’d love to know what your thoughts are.

So I have another handout which I put in the comments. I hope you can access the second one if you can’t access the first, but I’ll share the screen anyway, so that you can see this, this other download. And it’s, I’ve called this the “Emotions of Effort”. Now, I don’t know whether that’s a good title, actually, and that’s the diagram I want to share. Let me just get slightly smaller. So this is a diagram that relates our. (Actually it doesn’t make much difference – I might as well be on the screen at the same time.) This is a diagram that relates our level of skill to the difficulty of a challenge that we face.

Now it takes a bit of getting your head around at first. So I’m going to start by describing what happens as you go up the left-hand side of the diagram from boredom up to anxiety. So if we’re on the left-hand side of the diagram, that means that our level of skill is relatively low. And then the difficulty of the challenge increases as we go up the left-hand axis.

So when our skill level is low, if there is no difficulty in the challenge, we might be bored. We don’t really care. It’s not worth any of my effort, but as the difficulty of the challenge increases a bit. We might notice that it would require some effort and we can’t be bothered. So we call that apathy. And then if the difficulty of their challenge and the importance of it and continues to increase, we might feel that we don’t feel confident that we’re able to rise to the challenge because our skill level isn’t high enough and we might start to worry about it. So that’s why we have that section labeled worry. And then if we carry on and the difficulty gets even more, we might reach a point where we say, actually this needs to be done, but it’s too difficult for me. I don’t have the required level of skill. And then we start to experience anxiety.

So that’s my journey up the left hand side of the diagram, through boredom, apathy, worry, and anxiety.

And then if we move to the right hand side of the diagram and do the same kind of exercise, we move up from the bottom to the top as the level of difficulty of the challenge increases. To begin with, we’ve got a high level of skill, and there’s a challenge, which is easy. We can say, well, I can do this without even trying. I can be in a relatively relaxed state. That’s why we have the blue relaxation section. And then as the difficulty gets higher, we might go to a state of saying, Oh, I’m applying my skills to make this happen, so I’m in control. So there’s a sense of being in control. That’s the light blue triangle. As the difficulty of the challenge further increases, we might get to the flow state, which is where this whole discussion began, which is I’m totally absorbed in allowing this to happen. So we feel capable and competent. We’re enjoying the process because it is a challenge that we’re rising to. We’re applying our skills and we’re getting the thing done. And generally speaking, our focus of attention is, is narrow at this point. But if the difficulty of the challenge continues to increase and we might come out of flow and say, actually, I’m struggling now. This is actually beyond my limit. So that’s when we reached the yellow triangle at the top of arousal.

Now I’ve called that “The emotions of effort”. There is, I noticed in the Wikipedia entry for flow, that’s got a different name, but it didn’t make a lot of sense to me. So I haven’t, I haven’t shared that. I thought I’d written it down, but I haven’t even written it down. But so this is a diagram I find quite interesting because you don’t often get those different states of you know, boredom, apathy, flow, anxiety on a single diagram. But this is a way of, of relating these them to this relationship,if you like, between the challenge that we’re being asked to rise to and the skill that we may or may not have. And since I find flow to be a wonderful state to be in. I find it very healthy for me, both mentally and physically. I think it’s quite interesting to ask ourselves the question, what do we need to do to get into flow? The fact, is it even in an in8 week and then, excuse me, is it an innate need?

Now, and I know we’re starting to come to this from the discussion about movement. I don’t really think it is a need, but I think it provides one of the things that I’ve mentioned. And I’ve talked about polyvagal theory, which is a glimmer. It’s a, it’s gives us a sense of wellbeing when we’re in flow. And the glimmers are the things that raise our spirits, lift our spirits and, and kind of sometimes make it feel like life’s worth living, particularly important when we’re in this lockdown situation. I can’t wait for life to get back to normal again. I’m sure you feel the same.

So question: Does it involve movement? Is it, is what’s the link between movement and flow. I’m just really interested to know what you think.

There’s so several people can’t download the worksheet. I’m just checking the comments here. Bear with me just a moment while I refresh.

“Movement for me is essential to the flow state” says Jacqueline. Right? Interesting. Yes. And I’m interested to know, is that, is that movement in the sense, what form does that movement take? This is Jacqueline said “Movement from me, is essential to the flow state.” But we can get into flow intellectually sometimes can’t we? I think I’ve had that experience when I’ve just been immersed in writing or, or as I said, coding, and then someone says, “Even if I’m in a relatively, still meditation state, I begin to rock or move when in flow”. Interesting. Yes. Yes. I think the relationship, well, I should, as it goes on, I should say “Movement initiates flow”. Yes. Yes. I like that “Movement initiates flow.” I think it’s very hard to get into flow without movement personally, but thank you for sharing your comments. And I look forward to the ongoing discussion really in the, in the comments below.

So how are we doing for time? It’s 23 minutes past and I’ve covered most of the material I wanted to talk about today. I just think that this whole question of, of, of examining our relationship with movement is interesting. It’s healthy and it’s particularly relevant when we feel stuck because stuckness is a lack of movement. And sometimes we can get things moving by beginning to move our body.

Next week, we have the topic moves onto the observing self. One of my favorite topics. I’ve probably got loads to say about that, but this is one of our innate resources. It’s our ability to stand back and see the bigger picture. And so if you have any thoughts about the observing self, do share them next week, and I’ll be back here at two o’clock again, but as you will know, by now, I usually try and share a story in these sessions.

I like to share a story that’s relevant to the topic under discussion, but I’ve shared so many stories that I’m running out of them. And this is a story that I have used. And I think it’s particularly pertinent to our role as people helpers. When we’re working with clients, whether as a mentor, a counsellor, or a coach or a therapist of some sort, and this story illustrates what this quite a short story is, it illustrates one of the challenges that we face and it’s called The Watermelon Hunter.

So are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. Once upon a time, there was a man who strayed from his own country into a world known as the land of fools. He saw a number of people flying in terror from a field where they’d been trying to reap wheat. There’s a monster in that field! They shouted. So the man looked where they were pointing and he saw that what was actually in the field was a watermelon.

He offered to kill the monster for them. And when he’d cut the melon from its stalk, he took a slice and began to eat it. The people became even more terrified of him than they have been of the melon. They drove him away with pitchforks crying. “He will kill us next time, unless we get rid of him!” So they drove him off the land and he disappeared.

And it so happened that at another time, another man also strayed into the land of fools and the same thing started happening to him. But instead of offering to help them with the monster, he agreed with them that it must be very dangerous. And by tiptoeing away from it, with them, he gained their confidence. And then he spent a long time with them in their houses until he could teach them, little by little, the basic facts, which would enable them not only to lose their fear of watermelons, but even to cultivate them themselves.

And I think when we’re working with our client’s reality, it’s a sobering lesson that sometimes we mustn’t challenge things head on, we must work with their reality and then gently when the opportunity arises, just educate or reframe or do whatever it is that we do to help guide people towards a more healthy relationship to the thing that’s terrifying them.

So I’m going to check the comments again here, now. I hope you enjoyed today’s story. Very short one, but I think it’s pertinent. The worksheet is available on one of the links, but not the other. Not sure which one though. Okay. Well, thanks for that. I’ll just come back to the Facebook group, Got a number of comments there, but I think I’ve got the gist of it. So thank you for joining me today. I hope you found that useful.

One of our innate needs is to move our body, but I also think the psychological aspect of it, of moving when we feel stuck is just as relevant. And this card we often use as a catalyst in therapy sessions or in workshops just to get the conversations going about the things in life that really matter. So if you haven’t, I will fix the download link for the worksheet after this. And when I finished this live broadcast, please download it, fill it in and share any thoughts that you have or any insights or any questions that you’ve got on this topic in the comments below.

So thank you very much for watching. I’ll say goodbye now and whatever else you’re doing, make sure you meet me again or join me online at two o’clock next Tuesday for another Tuesdays Two o’clock topping, topic on the subject of the observing self and in the meantime, have a good week and whatever else you’re doing, don’t forget to keep breathing.

Here is the link to the worksheet:
>> Worksheet for “Movement”

And here is the link for the “Emotions of Effort”
>> “Emotions of Effort”

Please let me know what you think by commenting below!
Thanks, Alec