Heroes Not Zombies

BE THE FLOW

Take a pencil and draw a straight line. The beginning of the line represents the day you were born. You know that date. The end of the line represents the day you will die. Nobody knows that date. Now put a cross somewhere along the line representing today.

Everything between the day you were born and today is past. It doesn’t exist any more. You can only access it by using your memory (or the memories of others). Everything between today and the day you’ll die is the future. That doesn’t exist yet. You can only access it by using imagination. Some people focus a lot of their attention and energy on the past, maybe going over and over some painful event, some loss or hurt. Although they are alive now, they’re living in the past. Others focus most of their attention and energy on the future, wondering and worrying about all that might be, but which isn’t yet. They are living in some multi-layered world of what ifs.

The present is hard to grasp. The moment you become aware of it, it flies into the past. If you try to prepare yourself for what’s to come, for what lies in the immediate future, then that can rush into the present with such speed that it obliterates it.

There is only really one time you can be fully alive and that’s the present time. Using our memories we pull the past into the present, and using our imaginations we pull the future into the present too. The present is formed from past realities which create the framework of possible futures in the here and now.

The flow of time is like a great river which you can stand in the middle of. Or you can wade upstream into the past and see where the present is coming from. Or you can dive in downstream and imagine what the river may become.

The flow of time is not uniform and consistent however. Can you think of a time when time seemed to drag? Can you think of a different time where, conversely, it flew past? What do you think influenced those different speeds? Are there any particular activities or circumstances for you where time tends to drag, or to fly? What influences the speed of time? What slows it up? And what speeds it up? Is it down to you? Can you influence the speed of time, and if you can, how can you do that?

We us a lot of metaphors of time in our language. Let’s consider some of them to see what effect they have on the flow of time.

Passing the time. Do we mean passing in the same way a car overtakes another? Or do we mean transferring it, somehow?

Taking my time. Where are you going to take it? And how are you going to take it? Take my time declares a very personal time. It implies that I am in control of time.

Wasting time. How can time be wasted? We tend to say time has been wasted when we mean that we wish we hadn’t chosen to do exactly what we did choose.

Enough time, or, time enough. These are statements of contentment about time. Either we are able to complete something, or there is a satisfactory amount of time to do what we want to do.

The right time.The wrong time. This implies correct or incorrect actions. For example, it might be a good idea to sit down, but in certain circumstances, sitting down now will cause some problem or some offence. This judgement about right and wrong, like most such judgements, is usually after the event. We judge the present as right or wrong depending on the outcome of the future.

Time stands still. Can you actually experience time standing still? Can you achieve a moment of quiet and stillness through meditation, for example, where the flow of time seems stopped.

Making time. It’s not possible to manufacture time. Time flows by without us having any ability whatsover to see or otherwise  know where it comes from or where it’s going to end up. Yet, intuitively, we have a sense that we can make time stand still, or that someone else can make it stand for us.

Sharing the time. Sharing time is like sharing candle flames. If you and I share some time together, then neither of us has any less time. In fact, when we share time with someone, we can experience a heightened quality of time.

As you consider these, and other, metaphors of time, what do you learn about the flow of time?

That it is continuous but that it changes speed.

That you can move around in the flow of time, using memory, attention and imagination, each to varying degrees.

BE THE FLOW

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BE THE FLOW

Measure your personal energy. Let’s begin by devising a method for measuring your personal energy. This is any energy which only you can detect. Only you can say what your physical energy is like, whether or not you are feeling vigorous and vibrant, or washed out and exhausted. Only you can say what any of your personal energies are like. There are no machines which will measure these energies for you and there are no experts who can measure them for you either.

The simplest way to measure your personal energy is to use a “visual analogue scale”. It’s a kind of thermometer of personal energy. One such scale is the 0 – 100 scale. 0 represents the lowest amount of energy you can imagine, and 100 represents the greatest amount of energy you can imagine having. You can draw this scale on a vertical, or horizontal, or curved line, with 0 at one end of the line, and 100 at the other.

Most commonly the line is drawn as a vertical line with energy rising the way temperature rises in a thermometer. A pleasing alternative is more like a barometer or a speedometer where the needle moves from the low point of 0 at the far left to the high of 100 far right.

Draw your own line the way you want it to be.

Now think about your physical energy level. Right now. This very moment. Place an X on the line to represent what your physical energy level is now. Don’t take time to think about it. Just do it. You can’t get this wrong. You’re the only one who knows the correct answer.

Now you’ve got that number recorded, how about thinking about your mental energy? Do the same exercise. 0 represents the lowest mental energy you can imagine, and 100 the greatest. Where will you place your X right now?

Thirdly, let’s try spiritual energy. This isn’t so easy for some people and if it’s not for you, why not try, instead, to measure your emotional energy?

Go ahead.

You now have three points on your line (or 4 if you decided to spiritual AND emotional!). Are all the points at exactly the same position?

Commonly, they aren’t. We seem to have the ability to holistically, intuitively, and instantly assess these personal energies and to be able to discriminate between them.

In order to understand how energy flows within you, you can create an energy chart. You can measure whichever of the energies you’d like to understand – either a global, overall energy, or a specific, such as any of the four energies we considered above. In fact, you may choose to follow a number of these energies.

A simple two axis graph will enable you to create a useful chart. Make the vertical axis the energy one, with 0 at the bottom, and 100 at the top, and make the horizontal axis time. The duration of time covered by the horizontal axis should be that of the time period over which you want to assess your energy. Do you want to chart its ups and downs over a day? A week? A month?

Of course, as always, why opt for “or” when you can opt for “and”? Why not keep separate charts for each of these time periods and see what rhythms or cycles appear?

Most of us have some point in a day when our energy is at its best and also a time when it’s at its lowest. Are you a morning person, an afternoon person, or an evening person for example? Women especially might find a monthly rhythm connected to their menstrual cycle. Men and women might find that one particular day of the week is typically their peak energy day (or their trough energy day!)

It’s worth while making notes alongside the readings too. For example, when you record the measurement, what had you just been doing before you measured? Eating? If so, what? Conversing? With whom? The more notes you make alongside the readings, the more you are likely to be able to answer the questions – What increases your energy? and, What decreases your energy?

It can also be useful to note what you do in response to certain energy levels. For example, when your physical energy is high, what does that lead to? When your mental energy is high, what do you do at that time? And, conversely, what about when your energy feels low, what do you tend to do then?

Your answers to these questions will begin to reveal your default coping and response strategies to different energy levels.

Finally, consider the effect of sleep. What energy levels do you record before and after sleeping and are they different depending on whether you assess the effects of night time sleep or day time sleep? Is there a difference related to the number of hours of night time sleep? For many people, there’s an optimum range of night time sleep. Too little is insufficient, and too much, is just as bad. The same can be said for day time naps. What exactly is a “power nap”? Is there any such thing for you? Can you get a significant energy boost from just a few minutes napping?

Charting your personal energies – global, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual – in this way will teach you a lot about who you are and how you function. You can’t learn this about yourself in any other way.

As you become practiced at doing this, you’ll also find your ongoing level of energy awareness is heightened. You’ll be more able to experience the flow of energy within and around you.

BE THE FLOW

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BE THE FLOW

THREE RIVERS OF FLOW

What flows like a river?

Which flows make us who we are?

Which rivers flow together to create the river of Life?

Let’s consider the following three.

Energy; Time; and Consciousness

Energy

All substance is energy. All solid objects, whether animate, or inanimate, appear very different from the forms of energy with which we are familiar….heat, light, electricity etc. But in fact, all substances consist of molecules, molecules are built from atoms, and the deeper and deeper we peer into atoms, the more we see simply energy. As electrons whizz perpetually around in the nuclei of the atoms, and as physicists smash atoms to pieces only to discover more and more particles of energy, we discover that all substance is energy, that all energy is part of a great continuum, and that apparent solidity is only that – apparent. There is no different material of the universe called solid. It’s all energy.

Some energy can be experienced directly with our own senses. Light, sound and heat, for example. Some energy can be measured with machinery we manufacture. In fact, we are able to measure the energy our sensory organs can detect, and we can also measure energy for which we have no natural detection equipment – electricity and calories for example.

Other energies cannot be measured with machinery, cannot be detected with our sensory organs, but can be experienced as direct realities – the personal energies – mental energy, physical energy, spiritual energy.

Time

We measure the flow of time with our chronometers, our clocks, watches and timers. These measurements are completely artificial. They were invented by humans and developed as mechanical devices calibrated against the turn of the Earth, and the cycles of the sun and the moon.

But our experience of the flow of time is neither so linear, nor so constant. We experience time as passing slowly, or quickly. We experience time standing still, or time flying. We are also able to consider different durations of time, and in so doing, to change our perspectives.

Consciousness

Consciousness refers to your individual awareness of your unique thoughts, memories, feelings, sensations and environment. Your conscious experiences are constantly shifting and changing.

What is consciousness? It is the awareness of existence. It’s the experience of “I AM”.

But consciousness is not limited to our personal experience of living inside our bodies. As every person matures and develops we can see a natural progression of the expansion of consciousness from egocentric (the awareness of “me”), to ethnocentric (the awareness of “those who are like me”), to world-centric (the awareness of all Nature), and, ultimately, to universe-centric (the awareness of all that is). Each of these “levels” of development of consciousness contains the previous levels within it, so as consciousness expands to include all those who are like me, it continues to include the consciousness which is aware of “me”.

As we consider these expanding horizons, we increase the spread and depth of our connections, ultimately experiencing the universal consciousness from which all personal consciousness emerges.

BE THE FLOW

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I first came across the use of the word “flow” in relation to well-being when I read the book of that name by the psychologist, Czikszentmihalyi. Since then, I’ve found it a useful concept, not only in relation to happiness, mood and thinking, but also in relation to the entire good functioning of the human being.

When all your billions of cells work in harmony (another good word when thinking about health) then there is an integrated, coherent flow of energy and co-ordinated activity throughout your entire being.

In my BE THE FLOW, I explore this concept with words and images. Here’s the section on flow itself….

FLOW

What do you think of when you think of “flow”?

Flow involves constant movement and change.

We say we are in the flow, when what we are doing goes well, feels effortless and even exciting. When a sportsperson is in the flow, they are performing at their best, running fastest, scoring goals, hitting balls far and accurately. When a musician is in the flow, they are making beautiful, or stimulating, or moving, music. When a dancer is in the flow, his or her movements are elegant, beautiful and awe inspiring.

We all have days when Life flows well. Those days, we feel good, we achieve what set out to achieve, we get what we wish for.

It takes effort, practice and skill to make performances seem easy, to make them flow.

Flow might be effortless but it is full of energy.

A fast flowing river is vigorous, energetic, powerful.

You can hear the sound of the water flowing over a waterfall echoing through the forest long before you catch sight of the falls themselves.

When we see clouds racing across the sky, blown by the high winds, we don’t say they are flowing, but we could. They are water, and they are moving, fast and far, apparently effortlessly. The clouds flow over the sky from one horizon to the other.

The low clouds flow down over the tops of the mountains, like liquid nitrogen spilling out of its container. They flow down the side of the mountain, enveloping it, swathing it, wrapping it up in soft, wet, white cloud.

Healthy living organisms exhibit the characteristics of flow. They have vitality and vigour. All their parts are working well together, communicating well with each other, working in harmony, or showing what is termed “coherence”. Everything is flowing in the same direction, without turbulence, and without stasis. The coherence of flow creates a distinguishable being. We can see and know its existence. We can distinguish it from its surroundings, just as we can name a river.

Flow also suggests direction. Usually something which is flowing is flowing somewhere…..towards some point. Flow pushes towards what is called the “far from equilibrium point”. It pushes at the boundaries, at the limits. And, in so doing, new phenomena appear. This novelty, this appearance of new behaviours or patterns is known as emergence. Flow is, therefore, the driving force behind creativity.

BE THE FLOW

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BE THE FLOW

Water Lessons

We can learn a lot from water. Water is everywhere, both around us and within us. Without water we would die very quickly. Water meets many of our needs. Water can be a great teacher for us.

Let’s begin by considering the sea. All the oceans of the world are connected. There are no oceans, no seas, anywhere in the world, which exist in isolation. In fact although we name the oceans and the seas as if they are separate entities, they are not. They are all one, artificially divided up into regions. We do that all the time as human beings. We break down whatever we see into parts, and we name the parts, isolating them from their natural environment, artificially dividing them up to contain them.

All divisions are artificial. The seas and oceans of the world are more than just connected. They are all the one water.

The surface of the sea is rarely still. In fact, it is never still at the edges. Have you ever been to a beach where there are no waves breaking on the shore, where there is no tide? Some days, however, as you cast your eyes out further to sea, the surface may appear flat and calm, but it rarely stays that way for long. The wind blows, the currents flow, and the surface breaks into a myriad of waves. Every one of us is like one of these waves. We appear, as if we are separate and distinct entities, but only for a brief time, then we are gone again. This is no illusion. Like the waves, we do indeed appear as distinct, discernible entities. But only for a short period of time. Just as the waves emerge out of the ocean, without breaking away from the ocean, so we emerge from the universe, from Life, from the non-dual nature of reality. And just as the waves dissolve back into the great sea again, so do we, after a brief life, return to the universe, to whatever it is that we emerge from.

Apparently separate forms are not actually separate at all. All beings, all forms, emerge only for a brief time from the wholeness of everything, and they are all transient, soon finding themselves submerged again below the surface, finding themselves becoming one again.

As the wind and the currents produce the waves, so the sun’s rays heat the surface of the seas and the water rises high into the sky to form clouds. We can learn a lot from clouds. It is hard to define the edges of a cloud. As you look at it, it constantly changes shape, size and colour. You can point to a particular cloud sitting low on the top of a hill, but if you climb the hill, the closer you get to the cloud, the harder it is to see its edges. At some point, you enter the cloud itself, but it can be very difficult to know exactly when that occurs. It’s almost impossible to know where a cloud begins and ends. In fact once you get really close to a cloud, it becomes just mist, a wetness on the surface of your face, an obscurity, a hindrance to your vision. Strangely, clouds are easier to see from the distance than they are from close up.

Objects are not as fixed as they first appear. All objects are constantly undergoing change, and edges are not as clear the closer you look.

As the clouds drift towards the mountaintops, they release their water as rain, and the rain falls to the ground. As the raindrops gather on the ground they form puddles, ponds, and lakes, and they flow down the mountains and hills as streams which join other streams to become rivers. The rivers all flow towards the sea, returning to the point where they began.

All of life is cyclical. Just as the water in the sea rises to become clouds, then falls again as rain, we see the patterns and cycles of all life. Where are the straight lines in Nature? Where are the beginnings and the ends of things? Everything curves, bends, entwines, cycles and flows.

Why do the rivers follow the particular paths they take? Partly, the answer is the environment in which they flow. The earth and rocks encountered by the water resist it, and in that resistance they create the river banks. Partly, however, the answer is history. The water which has flowed this way before is joined by the water which falls today. The actual course of a river can change over the years, but we can easily place any river on a map. We can track it from it’s origins, from it’s source, right down the long and winding path to it’s estuary, and so into the sea again. Over the years, over the centuries, particular paths are carved in the surface of the Earth, and as each new rain falls, the water quickly seeks out these old paths and hurries down them.

The paths of the past create the paths of the present.

We name the rivers. We can place them all on our maps. Yet, as Heroditus said, you cannot step in the same river twice. He was pointing out the truth that the river constantly changes and flows. You never experience the exact same river twice.

Everything constantly changes. What you experience today can never be experienced again.

BE THE FLOW

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