Flow state meditation with the aim of becoming aware of awareness itself can increase your chances to enter a flow state during activities in which you would like to enter a flow state, as well as during other activities that you might not expect a flow state to occur or be of value. Additionally, this type of meditation will make life in between activities have more of a present moment flow to it.
Awareness itself is perhaps an under-appreciated and little-known common denominator of flow states and meditation. Regardless of what happens to the brain within a flow state and meditation, pure present moment awareness is ultimately where you’re going.
In order to better see the value of a strategy for flow state meditation, it is helpful to explore the conditions for a flow state, the brain during a flow state, and the relationship of both to meditation.
We’ll start with the conditions.
Conditions For A Flow State
Flow state expert Steven Kotler and pioneer Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describe the conditions for achieving a flow state as a balance between the challenge of the task and the skill level of the individual. Here are the key conditions they outline:
- Clear Goals: Knowing what is required and what the end goal is.
- Immediate Feedback: Understanding how well one is doing in the pursuit of those goals.
- Balance Between Challenge and Skill: The task must be neither too easy nor too difficult, matching one’s skill level.
- Total Immersion: Deep, effortless involvement that removes awareness of the worries and frustrations of everyday life.
- Concentration on the Task at Hand: Focusing on the present moment and the task, with no room for other thoughts.
- Sense of Control: A feeling of mastery and control over the task.
- Loss of Self-Consciousness: Not worrying about failure, which allows one to be fully engaged.
- Transformation of Time: One’s sense of time may either speed up or slow down.
These conditions are said to foster an optimal experience, leading to a state where people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter. The experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.
Here is how these conditions relate to meditation:
| Flow State Conditions |
Corresponding States from Long-Term Meditation
|
| Clear Goals | Increased focus and clarity |
| Immediate Feedback |
Improved self-awareness and understanding of one’s mental state
|
| Balance Between Challenge and Skill |
Enhanced cognitive function to match challenges
|
| Total Immersion | Deepened state of consciousness and presence |
| Concentration on the Task at Hand | Heightened attention and concentration |
| Sense of Control | Greater emotional regulation and sense of personal agency |
| Loss of Self-Consciousness | Reduced self-referential thoughts leading to a sense of unity |
| Transformation of Time | Altered perception of time, often feeling expansive |
The Brain In A Flow State vs. Meditation
Flow states and meditation both produce changes in the brain. However, flow state changes are temporary during the activity, while long-term meditation can have more lasting or permanent effects on the brain. Here are a few relevant areas to compare:
| Brain in Flow State | Brain of Long-Term Meditator | |
| Default Mode Network (DMN) Activity | Flow state is associated with decreased activity in the DMN, which is linked to a reduction in self-referential thoughts and mind wandering. | Long-term meditation leads to reduced activity in the DMN, suggesting a decrease in self-related thinking and mind wandering. |
| Executive Control Network (ECN) | During a flow state, Executive Control Network (ECN) activity intensifies as the brain coordinates complex cognitive tasks with heightened focus and efficiency, leading to increased productivity and creativity | Meditation enhances the ECN by fostering a state of relaxed alertness, which improves self-regulation, decision-making, and emotional balance |
| Transient Hypofrontality | Flow state involves transient hypofrontality, where there is a temporary decrease in the activity of the prefrontal cortex, allowing for increased creativity and problem-solving. | Studies have shown diminished activity in the prefrontal cortex during meditation, especially for long-term practitioners. |
| Cortisol and Epinephrine | In a flow state, the body’s release of cortisol and epinephrine is important for heightening alertness and mobilizing energy, thereby optimizing performance and focus during high-pressure tasks
“There’s a sweet spot, there’s a little bit of cortisol and or epinephrine in the so-called stress hormones and chemicals in your system in flow.” – Flow State Expert, Steven Kotler Too much and stress levels bring you out of the flow state. Too little and you can’t enter it. |
Long-term meditation practice contributes to the optimal regulation of cortisol and epinephrine levels, which supports sustained attention and calmness, enhancing one’s ability to engage in activities with a balanced and focused mindset |
While this only touches the surface of the research being done on the brains of those in a flow state and those that are long-term meditators, this table can give you a sense that meditation is likely to help the process of entering a flow state, and possibly vice versa. It also suggests a common denominator of resulting present moment awareness.
In my personal experience, there are many activities during which I get into a state of flow. One example is while playing billiards. Another is while creating artwork.
This doesn’t mean that I am in flow at all times while performing these activities. I notice a clear contrast of when I am and when I am not. It mainly comes down to whether or not the mind is involved in the process, blocking me from being purely aware. I experience this interjection of the mind as a psychological block to awareness itself.
When the mind can be clear and allow awareness itself to dominate the experience of the activity, flow can happen. In line with the conditions for flow states, this pure awareness enables total immersion, concentration on the task at hand, and the loss of self-consciousness.
Flow State Meditation To Let Go Of Psychological Blocks
The mind can tend to interject thoughts of criticism or ambition during a given flow activity. This can increase the activity of the Default Mode Network (DMN) and disrupt the balance of stress. A few examples of this type of thinking include:
- I need to do better
- I am doing great, I’m going to succeed!
- I’m clearly not very good – or – I’m not good enough
- Wow, I am pretty good, and I think I can do even better if I…
- Oh, I’m encountering this problem again
When this type of thinking pops into the mind, it can become distracting, or it can even increase our stress levels beyond the necessary levels, which can often break our state of flow. The DMN can become disturbed and/or cortisol and epinephrine can become imbalanced.
The problem is that it is very hard to control this type of thinking. The slightest mistake or a moment of success with the activity can trigger the thought and block the pure awareness that is at the core of our ability to stay in the state.
To give ourselves our best chance to enter and remain in a flow state, it follows that our brains need to let go of psychological blocks to awareness in the context of the activity.
How To Let Go Of Blocks To Flow
It can help to reflect on situations when you noticed yourself struggling to get into a flow state, or when you were in a flow state and broke out of it because of thought. Here’s a way to do it:
- Notice the thoughts that keep us from entering a flow state or stop the flow state.
- Explore the roots of these thoughts. They are often based in fear. Desire can certainly be part of the root, but fear often is at the root of a given desire.
- Explore if you can be 100% certain that the thought and its roots are true. If there is uncertainty, it should become easier to let it go. If you feel it is certain, there may still be more to explore. At the same time, if it is considered certain, then nothing can be done about the truth of what is, and therefore it can be let go.
This is one way to go about clearing our psychological blocks to awareness for flow states. However, it is possible for our thinking that disrupts flow states to be quite stubborn because of seemingly unrelated emotional challenges, which can be addressed through a wide range of other methods.
This process of letting go of our psychological blocks to awareness can help free up the mind in future flow state situations so that awareness can come to the forefront of our experience, allowing our action with the activity to become as pure as possible.
This brings us to the other side of the process, which is to train the brain to become aware of awareness itself.
Flow State Meditation on Awareness Itself
In the moments when we let go enough to be in a flow state, we are as close as can be to pure awareness. However, we may not realize that this awareness itself is primary to our experience at all times in our lives. We don’t realize this because it is so easy for the mind to be focused on or distracted by the endless content of our senses.
By becoming aware of awareness itself, we are noticing how awareness is primary and unmoved by the content of our experience. The mind may move via thinking, but the awareness is steadfast no matter what is going on.
Seeing this builds a confidence that the awareness itself is more “you” than the content of the mind, which can lead to a trust that enables the letting go of our psychological blocks to awareness. This is in addition to the possible effects of simply and routinely using meditation practices aimed at being aware of awareness itself.
I have not yet seen studies that show that a practice specifically meant to become directly aware of awareness itself changes the brain so that awareness itself dominates the experience. However, there may be enough evidence from the changes in the prefrontal cortex of the brain scans of long-term meditators to assume that meditation can produce this state as constant. It seems to follow that meditation that does this in the most direct way possible may produce the most powerful results. This has been my personal experience.
There are a wide range of meditations and introspective approaches that can help us to become aware of awareness itself. Here are a few:
- How To Find Yourself Through Awareness of Awareness
- Meditation for Awareness
- Present Moment Awareness Meditation
- Ram Dass Awareness Meditation
- Rupert Spira: Noticing The Presence Of Awareness
Flow State Meditation Strategy
To summarize, an effective strategy for flow state meditation is using meditation practices that help decrease activity in the DMN, enhance the ECN, support the regulation of cortisol and epinephrine, and allow you to realize pure awareness. A flow state meditation practice strategy to most optimally help you do this should be focused to:
- Become aware of your awareness itself.
- Let go of your psychological blocks to awareness.
The Benefits of Flow State Meditation
By undertaking meditation practices aligned to become aware of awareness itself and let go of psychological blocks to awareness, we are likely changing our brain to a disposition that is directly compatible to and supportive of a flow state.
As we begin a flow state activity, awareness can already be at the forefront of the experience. In other words, we won’t need to try to induce a higher state of awareness by performing the activity as we can already be purely aware – and this is further supported by a mind that is not likely to interject thoughts that can break this pure awareness.
This approach to training ourselves to enter flow states more easily can be helpful for activities during which we want to be in a state of flow, but it can also help us enter flow for activities when we didn’t intend it.
In my personal experience, while undertaking a given activity that does not present significant enough challenge to otherwise induce flow, I find myself becoming fully immersed in it anyway. Perhaps this is because challenge can be naturally created where it seemingly doesn’t exist.
For example, are you really executing a routine and mundane task, such as doing the dishes, as efficiently and carefully as possible? If you pay attention, there is a good chance that you will find that you aren’t. However, being purely aware won’t require this intentional realization as you will naturally move toward efficiency and care with the complete immersion, clarity of mind, and loss of self-consciousness that come with pure awareness.
Additionally, the changes that come with becoming aware of your awareness itself and letting go of your psychological blocks to awareness can make your time between tasks and activities significantly more fulfilling.
All of this is to say that flow state meditation cannot only enhance your ability to achieve a flow state during desired activities, but it can also enhance your life.
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