“Now breathe out, close your eyes, and relax your shoulders.” The yoga teacher's voice was supposed to calm me down, yet my mind kept racing. I was thinking of how the practice would be over in ten minutes, drafting a plan of action for the next steps of the day, and arranging dance practices, food, and sleep schedules.
Suddenly realizing how distracted my mind was, I tried to shake it off and concentrate on relaxing. “Now make a gap between your teeth, relax your face,” the teacher continued in a hushed voice. How do I relax my face? Isn’t there already a gap between my teeth? I tried to relax more with every breath and my face started feeling shapeless and mushy. As I was releasing the tension in my body, I was letting go of control. And it felt weird. Weird to feel and accept not having control over how my body felt or looked. It felt as if my face had melted and I’d become a puree of a person. “Breathe in and out, and release any tension you’ve been holding.” I followed the instructions, with every breath feeling how much control I’d been exerting over my own body and how scary it was to let that control go. Even though I increasingly felt more and more vulnerable, I wanted to keep myself in that state. Was I in a state of flow already?
The idea of trying hard to let go sounds paradoxical. It implies the use of tension to achieve relaxation and the use of effort on the way to effortlessness. I’m reminded of those painful massages where the masseuse presses the points of tension to release it. But there is a hurdle on our way to letting things flow and that hurdle is control.
Why does it feel so scary to let go of control? Is it because we don’t always know what’s on the other side? As I was relaxing my face in that yoga class, not only I observe my body getting into an unfamiliar state, but I also felt a heap of emotions coming up. As my eyes teared up for seemingly no reason, I started going through a mental checklist of things that could make me sad. I scanned the current worries and anxieties, losses and longings, but nothing seemed like a good enough reason for me to burst into tears. I calmed the search in my mind’s database and recognized that my tears were a physical expression, a release of tension that I unknowingly held in my face, in my chest, and even in my toes. Releasing that tension released the flow of water and in this case the flow of tears.
Water seems a well-suited metaphor when talking about flow. To flow like a river does. In that case, control would be akin to a dam, regulating and directing the flow. Alternatively, the artistic process is frequently characterized by envisioning the artist as a conduit through which ideas can freely flow. That’s where we need to challenge our need for control and investigate what happens when we relinquish it.
I remember as a kid coming to my friend's house after school and sitting down to play the piano. I did not know a single note or a hand position, but I’d kept playing it for hours. Even though, in all accuracy, I should probably say “hitting the piano” as my sound was far from the classical sounds of Chopin and my poor friend wasn’t in for a treat. However, I found so much joy in the uncontrollable expression of something within me. A wild energy that found an outlet to be channeled through. Now I know, I was deep in the flow, not fearing, not controlling. Young and untamed enough to give no care in the world of how I sounded.
I’ve lost some part of that ability to let go and years later, as I lay in my yoga class, I question myself, wondering what happened to that girl hitting black and white keys with full exertion.
For many, the art of striving and struggling has always held some allure of admiration. We’re taught that all things important require effort and hard work. Sleepless nights and sweat and tears are to be applauded. Naturally, we transferred this way of thinking to our work, relationships, and artistic explorations. At our jobs, with our loved ones, and at our practices, we have to continue working to be our “best selves”. What if we let our “non-superlative selves” exist and express ourselves? What if we already know, we just need to learn to let it in and flow through us. Relax enough so we can become vessels for ideas, emotions, words, and movements.
“What would an effortless work, relationship, or creativity look like?”. I write this sentence down in my notebook and feel something within me shifting. Years of conditioning that you need to “fight” for things you care about. But looking back at the times I felt most in the flow, whether that was writing, dancing, or spending time with a beloved, it was effortlessness that made it so special. The very bearable lightness of flow.
I put on a Swing song. It’s just me at the studio. As I start dancing, I sense my body being stiff and my mind wondering, jumping from thoughts about steps I want to try, to feeling dissatisfied with my arm movements. I keep going, I try to push through. But I can’t break into that state of flow. At the end of the practice, once I’m sweaty and slightly disappointed, about to call it a day, I put on one more song just for listening. I don’t even try to dance on it at first. I give it time. I let the music sink in my bones, in my joints. I let it wiggle my fingers and bop my head ever so slightly. A few minutes in, I can’t contain myself and start moving my body through space, not only catching the music but becoming the music. Once I stopped fighting against, hoping to push through, I let myself be and in that being I could also become, and merge with anything and everything around me. I could feel myself stop trying to control the music. I was becoming every accent of every instrument, catching sharp trumpet squeaks and rhythmical drum breaks, quieter notes of clarinet and slidey trombone sounds. I was not resisting, I was not controlling the outcome and I was finally flowing.
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