High on Happiness

Posts Tagged ‘Flow’

The left side of my brain says that the tree leans over the creek the way it does due to such things as the direction of light and prevailing winds, the flow of the water, erosion and such.  But the right side imagines that it’s leaning that way to see what delights are flowing downstream and to better hear the creek’s singing.

It does look like a happy tree, after all, raising its strong limbs like that, as if I caught it in a dance.

If you began every day leaning into joy, watching to see what good things were rolling toward you down the time stream, you would be likely to dance, too.  If you set your mind to notice the pleasures and delights as they flow past—the moments of laughter and satisfaction, the chances you grabbed to exercise your best strengths, talents, and skills, the things that tickled your senses—your day would bubble with instants of happiness.

Lean into joy.  It’s a great happiness practice.  Just set your mind in the morning to watch for the good things and then let them roll.

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Flow like water, rockin’ it, laughing.  Meet reality head on.  No resistance.  No having it any other way.  Just what is, right now, with arms and eyes wide open.

Fly it.  Fall with it.  Feel its might.  One dazzling instant transforming into another faster than light, roaring its nonstop cosmic yes.

That’s the song of joy, man.  All out joy.
Be it.

Want to know one of the secrets of high achievers?  They have  clear pictures inside themselves of how it will feel when they’re performing at their best, when they’re playing at the top of their games.

Whether you’re a butcher or baker or candlestick maker, there’s a feeling you get when you’re doing everything right.   You guide the knife perfectly along the lines of muscle, you coax just the right resiliency from the dough beneath your hands, you blend the waxes so they flow with a beautiful consistency.  And in that moment, you experience such clarity and ease that you want to do it again and again, every time you set about your work.

The feeling is a special kind of happiness, one of engagement and flow.  And those who experience it say it’s so fine that it’s worth all the work that goes into creating it.  The hours of learning, the days of practice are nothing compared to the feelings of satisfaction and joy that comes from exercising mastery.

High achievers in all walks of life—athletes, artists, business leaders, surgeons—all describe the sense of wholeness and energetic harmony they feel, the sense of smooth effortlessness, when they were in full resonance with their work.  And what’s more, they say it’s the memory of this feeling that motivates them to keep refining their skills, to pull themselves up again when they hit a dry spell.   They want to feel it every day, to have it be the pivot around which their days revolve.

The key is to keep at what you’re learning until you reach the moment when you’re lost in the utter and complete harmony of doing it well, of being the best you can be at it.  Whatever you’re working toward, take time to sink into your expectation of how it will feel once you have attained prowess, mastery of your skill.  Allow yourself to feel it in your body, to experience the richness of it fully in your imagination, to save the depth of happiness and freedom that it offers your spirit.

The day will come, if you keep on keeping on, if you persevere through the hours of preparation and practice, when the feeling is more than a dream.  And knowing inside yourself how it will feel when you get there is one of the surest ways to keep yourself keeping on.