Intro To Flow - Is It The Key To Happiness?

Hi,

And welcome to The Flow Show.

I'm Joanna Turner,

Intuitive Business Mentor,

And I want to kick this podcast off with,

If I'm gonna call it The Flow Show,

I might as well explain what I mean by flow.

So as we understand why it is so important and so excited and why I am so passionate about flow,

Living in flow and experiencing it in my life.

There are two types of flow,

We'll get into that.

I'll talk about the first one,

Which is probably the most commonly known one,

And then we'll get into a sort of more higher view of it as well.

And I'll tell you a little bit about my story as we discuss it and get into it.

And one of the things is I've been on a very varied journey in my life and with my business,

And I kept going from one thing to another and became quite a varied skillset,

I suppose,

From trauma relief to health and wellness.

You know,

I've really focusing on detox and then somatic work,

Body work,

And it all kind of was sort of,

There were a lot of different topics and I really wanted to sort of understand what brings it all together.

Why am I going in all these different directions?

Why am I studying all these different things?

And ultimately I came to understand that all of these different factors that I was studying ultimately got us more into the flow state,

More into living in flow,

Which is the second part of flow.

And really just,

It was the way to live the best life.

And so all of these different elements come into it.

We'll not go into everything today,

Obviously,

But we will sort of set the scene about why it's so important and then over coming episodes,

We'll dive deeper into different elements of flow and obviously all of the different ways you can start to access this really exciting state.

So let's get into it.

I have a little bit prepared and then we'll just go with it for the rest.

So here we go.

Flow is the opposite of burnout and stress.

So I believe that burnout and stress is one of the epidemics of our era.

I don't know if you've ever heard of the term Karoshi.

It's a Japanese word and it describes the phenomenon of people dying at their desks in Japan from overwork.

So you often hear the stories of they're either dead on the subway,

Dead at their desks,

Just overworking.

And I definitely suffered from that myself.

I had one spiritual mentor tell me,

Well,

I had a few of them actually in my mid thirties.

One said he didn't think I would make it to my 40th if I carried on the way I was.

And I had some other pretty stark warnings from other healers and coaches that my body wasn't gonna make it.

And actually my body at one point,

It's a whole nother story.

When I finally slowed down and listened to it,

My body told me it was dying.

And I had a real wake up call with how I was working and living.

And I knew I had to make some pretty dramatic changes.

So it's very,

Very important to me.

And I believe that a lack of personal development and a lack of not healing our core wounds and traumas is a major root cause of the unhappiness on the planet today.

It also is the root of the opioid crisis,

The reason suicide rates are off the chart.

We obviously have massive political craziness,

Unrest,

Wars.

There is a lot going on in the world and we're really seeing it happening at a really deep level.

So I really care about this work.

I was also aware that I feel like there is so much bad and stuff going on in the planet.

I wanted to create something that was going to add positively to the world and not be all sort of swamped down in the mires of it,

But at the same time,

Helping heal in a different way.

So that really is part of the premise of the podcast.

I want it to feel uplifting.

I want it to feel like you're tapping into another frequency,

Getting coded with miracles and possibilities and excitement because,

And healing is,

Of course,

Because if we are not healed,

Then nobody can be healed.

So I will obviously share about my work and all of the things I've discovered,

But also speaking to people in the interviews and hearing their flow stories,

Which I will get into in a little bit,

And the magic that they can bring into your life.

So I really,

We're not ignoring what's going on in the world,

But I do want it to be a positive place that you can come and feel uplifted.

And I really do care about this because I was living for so many years out of flow.

I used to be an accountant.

I call that my past life.

I've had many past lives,

But in this incarnation,

I was a chartered accountant for 17 years.

It wasn't something I felt like I had chosen,

But I did it anyway,

And it was crushing my soul.

My spirit had all sorts of health issues going on,

Weight gain,

Adrenal fatigue,

Hair loss,

Panic attacks.

And basically I was just exhausted and miserable,

And I would be sitting at my desk.

I was very successful at it,

Luckily.

I did it all over the world.

I lived in Bermuda,

Then I lived in Sydney,

And I worked for a big fancy listed company.

I had a great job as a group accountant there,

But I was sitting just absolutely miserable at my desk every day and would look at my boss,

My boss's boss,

And think,

I don't want any of their jobs.

And I certainly don't want to be here in five years,

10 years,

Or God forbid,

30 years.

So I knew something had to change,

But I was so entrenched as an accountant,

It was a very difficult thing to figure out.

I hadn't really done anything to move myself forward apart from look for different accounting jobs,

Which I thought would maybe help.

But my final wake-up call was actually,

I had received a back injury while I was volunteering as a lifeguard in Sydney,

One of the ones you see on the beach in yellow and red.

And I had done my training on the lifeboats,

And we were out in really heavy surf one day,

And we crashed over a wave.

I had received a compression injury in my lower back.

And as somebody who had been trained in spinal injuries for the very purpose of helping people with that kind of thing on the beach,

I really thought I'd done myself in,

And it wasn't until the next morning,

I literally couldn't get out of bed.

I couldn't then,

I was so sore and stiff and in pain,

And I was like,

What have I done to myself?

But it meant that I couldn't sit at my desk at work.

I was lying on the floor next to my desk,

Or I'd go into the photocopy room and lie on the floor,

Just in so much pain because sitting was really painful.

Lying on the floor or gentle walking,

I wasn't in too much pain,

But I really struggled sitting at my desk.

So I ended up with some time off.

I obviously wasn't doing my volunteering as a lifesaver.

I wasn't doing my instructing as a lifesaver,

Training people how to do that.

I wasn't doing my triathlon training anymore.

And suddenly this really busy life that I had,

Working full-time,

Doing all these extracurricular things in the evenings,

I was so busy,

So active.

Suddenly it kind of all stopped,

And I had all of this time on my hands.

And that is when my world sort of opened up,

And I discovered an online course,

And I started studying to become a health coach.

And since then I've done countless certifications,

Trainings,

Master NLP,

Advanced EFT,

You name it.

I've gone and done the training as a master transformational coach.

So many business trainings,

Business university things,

Like tons and tons of stuff.

So really gone down many,

Many rabbit holes into plant medicine,

Shamanism,

Tantra,

You name it.

I have done so many things on my own journey to try and heal myself,

And then in turn being able to help thousands of women release their fears and go for their dreams through online courses,

Events,

Retreats.

And when I've been doing that and in full flow,

I've never felt more fulfilled and on purpose.

And in my pursuit of some of those things over the years,

And I was nomadic for four of those years,

Fully a nomadic with no home address,

One or two suitcases with me,

That was it.

I really threw myself into the flow of the universe and started to discover flow for the first time in my life.

I really hadn't,

I had maybe little snippets of it,

Maybe little slight moments of magic and things happen,

But it wasn't until I really started following my path for me that everything opened up and it became really quite exciting.

It has not also been an easy road.

I've had many challenges.

I didn't really,

Before I started this journey,

I didn't really know what an emotion was.

I prided myself on not really feeling much and didn't really understand anybody who did.

So that has been a huge awakening.

My personal development journey led into a spiritual awakening.

And since then,

I have been able to feel very deeply and really face a lot of my own inner demons and shadows that have come up to be healed,

To be seen,

To be loved,

To be released,

And faced a lot of inner demons.

And I really believe that we teach what we need to learn ourselves.

And so having been through a lot of this stuff and then realizing that I didn't think I was enough and I hadn't valued myself or I didn't belong,

Getting a lot of my value from people pleasing,

Putting others first,

All that kind of stuff.

I really had to unpack that and go on quite an in-depth journey with myself.

And I built my business as I was going through a lot of that.

So I know what it feels like to not be living in flow and the impact it can then have,

Obviously,

On your health,

Your happiness,

And everything else.

And so once I started living in flow,

I really realized the massive difference that can come from it.

So let's talk a little bit about what on earth flow is.

So like I mentioned,

There's two different types of flow.

So we're going to talk first of all about what I call microflow,

Which is the flow state in smaller chunks.

So it is an altered state of consciousness and it might be the most desirable state on earth,

And it can also be the most elusive.

So people actually die in the pursuit of experiencing flow.

So for one example is people experience flow while base jumping,

You know,

Those crazy flying fox suits that people wear.

When they are flying,

They're in flow.

And so this sort of high experience,

This altered state of consciousness will push people to do crazy things and risk their lives to get there,

Which is obviously something I do not recommend,

Definitely not,

You know,

But it's also that same high that people are seeking when they do that crazy free diving,

You know,

They're also risking their lives doing that.

Surfers experience flow at a very high rate.

They actually did a lot of studies on surfers trying to understand flow and how to get into flow because they experience it at such a high level.

And we also love to watch people experiencing flow.

Like we watch people playing tennis,

For example,

Like we pay good money to watch people in their flow.

So it's one of these things that is quite,

Once you start to break it down,

You go,

Oh,

Hang on a second.

Yeah,

I do do that.

You will pay for it.

So it's actually estimated that this altered state economy is worth about $4 trillion a year.

That quote comes from a book called Steve's Four Trillion a Year.

The sad thing is though that people to experience flow often,

You know,

Get into these destructive ways to experience it,

Like base jumping or whatever.

And I really,

You know,

So I think it's something that if we can start to hack it for,

You know,

And you use different things and keep it really simple,

Then I think that's pretty amazing.

It was actually a study done by a man called Mihai Chixentmihai in Russia.

And he was trying to understand what made people happy.

And it led him to discover that people that experienced flow in their life were actually the happiest people on earth,

Right?

So we all obviously want more of that.

We all want to be happy,

I think.

And so if we can experience more flow,

Then we obviously are going to be happy.

So the way I sometimes try and think about what does flow look like,

It is when time stops.

You can maybe,

Maybe you're,

It's as simple as having a great conversation with your best friend,

And somehow you thought you were only dropping in for a quick chat and four hours have passed.

For me,

It happened a lot when I was drawing or painting.

I could spend an entire afternoon and just the time just disappeared,

But it didn't feel like I'd just spent four hours painting or drawing,

It had just happened.

So it can often be something that you absolutely love doing.

And I once,

In my business,

One of the times that I really was like,

Whoa,

What just happened was when I wrote,

I think it was 18 sales emails in one sitting.

It was 18 or 21,

I think it was maybe 18,

Let's call it 18.

Really awesome sales emails,

And it just poured out of me.

The words were pouring out of me.

And that's really the only time I choose to write content for my business is when I'm in a flow state and the words just start pouring out of me.

It's almost like it's not me,

It's coming through me,

Not actually me,

Like the muse has arrived and I just jump on and let the words come.

So it can feel like that.

Sometimes if you're at work and you just get in the zone,

Some people tend to find they need,

So there are obviously different levers to get into flow.

Procrastinating is actually one of them.

So some people like to leave things to the last minute.

I don't know if you've ever done that.

I certainly have many,

Many times.

And a task that I would be sitting knowing that I had to get done for two or three weeks,

I would then,

And maybe I'd tried a little bit here,

A little bit there.

Suddenly when my deadline was looming,

I managed to get the entire thing done and written and formatted and sent into whoever needed it within a couple hours.

And it was really good,

But why could I not do that three weeks before and get it off my desk without having to stress about it for three weeks,

Right?

Wouldn't that make so much more sense?

Wouldn't that make you happier instead of having this looming thing hanging over you that you're waiting to the absolute last minute to do?

And the thing is a lot of people,

When they push that and when you need that desperate,

Sort of almost like you're teetering on the edge of risk of it not being done,

And you push and push,

You sort of need more and more of that risk factor.

And the thing is when you,

Maybe you've normally always been able to get the thing done on time,

You start to miss those deadlines.

And that's when it all unravels.

And we really want to not have to rely on taking it to that extreme.

We obviously want to figure out how to get in that state without pushing it to those sort of extreme times.

So let me give you a couple of stats about flow and what happens when you're in flow.

So people have,

There was a McKinsey study done that showed that people actually found a 500% increase in productivity when they were in flow.

I mean,

That is wild,

Right?

Being able to get five times the amount of stuff done when you're in flow rather than out of flow.

Also your skill acquisition was 490% faster.

So if you are learning something new,

If you are studying all of those kinds of things,

You're gonna learn faster if you're in this flow state.

There is a 430% increase in creative problem solving,

Right?

You can figure out the ideas are coming.

You're like,

Yes,

Yes,

Yes,

Let's go.

Amazing.

And also the other cool thing is for three days after you've experienced high flow,

You actually have a heightened state of creativity for the next three days.

So a lot of these stats have come again from Stephen Kotler and Jamie Wheel.

They've done something called the Flow Genome Project,

Really researching into flow.

And I was actually given the amazing opportunity once to ask Stephen some questions at an event I was at.

And he didn't particularly like my questions because they have sort of come at flow from a very,

I was going to say masculine point of view,

Which is obviously what it is,

But I was going to say very like structured research-based,

Very linear,

Linear,

That's a better word for it.

So they've come at it from a very linear point of view.

And when I asked him if there was an effect of spirituality or personal development or any of these sort of plant medicines or sacred sexuality or any of these kinds of things,

If they had accessing,

They had any benefits in being able to access the flow state,

He kind of like freaked out a little bit on stage,

To be honest.

He just said,

We have not studied that connection.

And he just kind of just did not want to even go there or discuss it at all.

So for me,

His work is amazing.

It's,

And the levers and things that he talks about are great,

But he also suggests one way to get into flow is to fling yourself down a mountain on a mountain bike kind of idea.

And while that's fine and great,

It doesn't work for the average person on the average day who wants to get into a flow state to be able to get their work emails done,

Create some beautiful content for their business or paint a beautiful picture,

Right?

So we don't want to have to,

Again,

Rely on these sort of extreme levers to be able to get ourselves there.

And we'll talk more about these kind of different ways to hack flow and get into it on another episode.

But I just kind of wanted to talk about that.

And I'm sure you've all experienced when you're in the zone where all of that,

You just lose track of time.

The other beautiful thing is your judgment disappears.

So the frontal part of your frontal cortex actually shuts down the part that judges you.

And so all the time and energy that you waste judging yourself and your work just disappears in those moments and you're able to get a lot more done.

So the flow state is really cool.

It's a really exciting topic.

I think it's really a cool thing to experience.

And once I started experiencing it,

I was like,

Oh,

I want to live like this,

Right?

You're like,

Well,

If I can do that much work in a short amount of time,

Why can't I just do that all the time?

But you actually,

Because being in the flow state actually floods your body with a sort of a unique mix of sort of hormones and sort of dopamine and serotonin and all of this,

And effing edging.

It's a sort of unique cocktail that no drug can actually recreate.

You actually can't live like that for long periods of time because your body would completely burn out.

So while it's a really great hack for getting things done and not burning out,

If you try and stay in that flow state for too long,

People will burn out.

You often see that with these sort of tech guys,

You know,

In Silicon Valley,

Just totally working their asses off for like two years straight,

Don't stop.

And then they just collapse and can't work for a year or two.

So we wanna build in moments of flow,

But we actually,

We don't wanna live in the flow state,

But we maybe wanna live in macro flow.

So this is a second type of flow that we're going to talk about today.

So we've got the flow state,

Number one,

Micro flow,

And then living in flow.

I was like,

How can I experience more of this,

But without burning out,

Right?

We wanna sort of create this beautiful state of being.

And the way I've described flow in the podcast is,

Let me just,

Are there moments of awe?

So the flow stories that we're gonna talk about in the podcast are moments of awe,

Synchronicity,

Coincidence,

Miracles,

Magic,

God wings.

But those times when things happen in such a wondrous way that the only possible explanation is a higher power.

So when people are in the flow state,

They often say that they feel like they are connecting with God,

Source,

The universe,

A higher power.

Something else is there connected.

They are beyond themselves.

And so it's these moments of connection that,

Yes,

It's nice to experience it in that flow state that you might experience for a couple hours or a day,

But how can we experience that in our life and sort of live into it?

So when I started on this journey and I started experiencing all these magical synchronicities,

I was like,

Whoa,

What is happening?

And sometimes trying to explain them,

Which I obviously will in this podcast and in my stories,

It's hard to sort of explain how beyond the magical they are.

But when you are experiencing these synchronicities,

It just feels like you're on the right track.

You're like,

Okay,

I am on my path.

I am on purpose.

I am living what I'm supposed to be living when these magical moments happen.

And they really,

It takes away stress from your life.

You just really feel this connection and knowing that life is happening for you,

Not to you.

I know it's cliched,

But it's true.

And when you get really tapped in and really into flow,

You can almost feel like you're in a virtual reality game show.

Like your whole life is like a creation that you make.

And I really love that.

So I've got a couple of quotes.

Do you know,

I don't know if I wanna share them.

I'm not so convinced that I like those people that I have these quotes from anymore.

Right,

Let's carry on.

But so,

And there is a way to live in flow as well.

So when I talked about flow,

This flow state,

You need,

You can't live in it all the time.

So there is a time of recovery afterwards.

There's also the time where you're trying to get back into the flow state and then you release and you surrender into,

To get back into flow.

And so really it is the same process to get into the flow state for these bits of hyper work.

And then there's also the same thing,

But on a sort of grander scale built into your life.

And you can sort of have flow on in a day,

In a week,

In a month,

In a season,

In a year.

And sort of,

We sort of start to think of things as cycles and cyclical and seasonal in the way that we're living in flow.

And what it does is that it really takes a struggle away from the moments where you're maybe feeling like you're out of flow and you just realize that it's actually part of the flow process and it's not so bad after all.

So I actually came up with this formula for flow and we'll talk a little bit about it.

And focus,

So to get to be in flow and to live in flow,

You need focus,

You need faith in something.

And you need to let go of control and you need to let go of fear.

And that I believe is a sweet spot of where you hit flow.

So that was focus plus faith,

Less control,

Less fear equals flow.

So we'll talk more about how to work with each of these factors to find more flow in your life.

So the really cool thing is when you do get into flow and you start living in flow and experiencing these beautiful flow stories and synchronicities,

It really feels that you're in alignment with your passion,

Your mission.

You have clear goals,

You're stretching your comfort zone,

You're living in a state of radical acceptance of your life,

Surrendering into a higher power,

Something bigger,

Taking radical responsibility,

Really clear boundaries,

Letting go of anything that doesn't serve you and really tapping into thinking big,

Gratitude and really elevating your vibration for want of a better phrase.

So all of these beautiful things come into play and when you start to live in flow,

I believe that it unlocks possibilities,

Happiness,

Your genius brain is activated,

There's spontaneous healing happens,

You really connect to the quantum field,

You're living your truth,

You're connected to your truest,

Highest expression of yourself,

You're in awareness with your feelings,

You're living from a dynamic place of manifesting,

It's fulfilling,

It's fun,

You're living into your creativity,

It's a really beautiful,

Beautiful state to be part of and be connected to.

So that is what we are going to be talking more about,

Sharing about and talking about all the ways that we can get into flow and live more in flow.

So thank you so much for being here for this part of the podcast.

Obviously going forward,

There will be a combination of times where I do solo casts and have interviews,

We have two brilliant interviews coming up next,

I really hope you enjoy them and I have some amazing other guests lined up over the next few weeks and months to come and share their beautiful magic with you as well.

So take care and obviously as we are a brand new podcast,

We really appreciate all of your love,

Shares,

Reviews,

Subscriptions,

All of that good stuff really helps us out as a little baby podcast,

Figuring out and hopefully improving and getting better and better so as we can have a really beautiful,

Positive impact on the world.

All right,

Thank you so much.

I will speak to you again soon.

Take care,

Bye.