Have you ever been so absorbed, so completely attentive to a task that all else falls away? Have you ever lost your sense of self in an activity that you connect to the vastness of the world and feel a sense of pure joy? That's something that both yogis and surfers feel and the subject of this second post on the relationship between surfing and yoga.

In my first post 🕉 Part 1: Connections to Something Bigger than The Self I talked about how surfers and yogis often have a strong connection to the natural world, the cosmos and the Earth, mainly because they see it as part of them - there's no separate 'I' from the rhythms of the waves and sound of our breath.

In this steempost, I'm going to talk about flow, and how it's something that both yogis and surfers experience. For me, my greatest days of happiness and bliss are when I've done my asana practice, meditated and surfed. I feel more in the moment, more aware and in touch with joy than at any other time - it's quite a feeling!

Yet you don’t need to be a surfer or a yogi or both to understand flow – think about if you've ever been so immersed in playing guitar, drawing, climbing a mountain, gardening, running that you:

• Lose sense of time, or experience it going quickly or slowly
• Feel a sense of peace and joy, bliss and happiness
• Feel a heightened sense of awareness or consciousness
• Realise a sense of the vastness of the universe as it expresses itself within you
• Slip into a state of concentration that all ‘I’ and the narrative of ‘you’ dissolves

then you're inside an experience called ‘flow’ – a term coined by positive psychologist Michaly Csikszentmihaly to describe an intensity of concentration so absolute that it brings you into this state of flow. Sports psychologists will often speak of flow when they talk about athletic performance and total attention and thus concentration on the action at play.

Have you ever experienced flow?

Surfers get addicted to this sensation so much that they describe surfing like a ‘drug’. Whilst this may not be a good benefit to ‘flow’, it’s still a pretty powerful experience:

This is what yogis call dhāraṇā (from Sanskrit धारणा)– one of the 8 limbs of Patanjali’s eight fold path. It may be translated as ‘single focus’ or ‘holding steady’, and as we withdraw from the everything else (in yoga, this is pratyahara) we gain a single pointed focus so strong that we’re only concentrating on one object of our attention. For meditators, this is usually the breath. We’re still aware of doing - i.e, that we’re meditating – but everything else seems to fall away as we slip into this greater state of awareness. It’s the precursor to the ego-mind dissolving completely and bliss, or Samadhi, being attained. Sometimes, we can achieve this through asana practice, so we are flowing in a moving meditation to the point that all the world falls away and we slip into complete awareness. I get the sensation that I am the seer - the witness - rather than the do-er.

I feel as if I'm entering a completely different field of conciousness.

This is the exact feeling I get when I'm surfing sometimes.

The thing with flow, as Csíkszentmihályi explains, is that it happens under really particular conditions. It's usually when we're testing our skills, yet we're at the right stage to meet them. We're stretched to the limit, but to so much that we become anxious. For example, I never get flow when I'm in a class with a lot of balancing poses at the end of a long day of work. I simply can't get into the 'zone' because I feel I'm being far too mentally challenged. Likewise, if I paddle out in big surf, I'm never going to flow because I'm far too worried about dying!

The flipside is also true. The other day I was surfing tiny waves that weren't breaking in the spot consistently, and were few and far between. I find my mind wandering a lot and although it was nice to get out there, I didn't feel total joy - I hadn't lost myself in the flow of waves, breath, mind, body and spirit. In the yoga room too, if the teacher isn't guiding us or it's too easy for me, my mind wanders too much and I get frustrated. According to flow theory, you need complete concentration on what one is doing in the present moment.

Flow is when our actions and our conciousness or awareness are completely one. Think about a guitarist with his music - the playing is automatic, appears effortless, and it's like he has merged with his guitar.

The other interesting thing about flow is the how we become beyond emotion - that's because we're just not aware of the ego self. In yoga, or when I'm having a good surf, I'm not really aware of 'me', time, or any other problems. My experience is smooth - a balance between challenge and ease, effort and allowing. I know I'm in flow, and I feel at peace.

Feeling at peace is one of the benefits of flow that keep making me go back to surfing and yoga - I'm instrinsically motivated to do so. The thing is, flow can only come from hard work - you can achieve 'low flow' from absorbing yourself in a video game (sorry gamers) or watching Netflix, sure, but, according to research, it's 'high flow' that's gonna make us happy:

"enhancing the time spent in flow makes our lives more happy and successful. Flow experiences are predicated to lead to positive affect as well as to better performance. For example, delinquent behavior was reduced in adolescents after two years of enhancing flow through activities"

Flow makes me focussed and concentrated, and can give bring us to ecstatic joy. It helps give me clarity and brings me a sense of peace. I know I can do it, but I'm not pushed so far that I feel anxious. I don't worry about my 'self' and I push into a zone beyond the socially conditioned 'me'. I lose time or I'm unaware of it. The more I get chance to do it, the more positive I feel and the more satisfied I am, and I feel like I'm moving forward, developing and growing. The flow continues to challenge me as I step up to the flow.

Sure, it's addictive for me. But there are far worse things to be addicted to.

I can't help but feel that the more we intrinsically motivated we are step up to flow, the more happy we will be, and the more likely it is that we will contribute to making the world a better place.

What do you think? Are you addicted to flow? Do you experience flow? I'd love to hear about it!

I'm also totally honoured to be a passenger on the #ecotrain - check out this hashtag for some pretty amazing posts permaculture to meditation, environmental issues to food forests - I highly recommend checking out this tag as you're guaranteed of sweeeetness!

Plus, I'm super excited and honoured to be part of @tribesteemup - a heap of amazing crew who all post quality posts about helping the Earth and humanity and generally making the world a better place. You should definitely check out the #tribesteemup trail to find some quality writing.