Flow Friday - The Reset Flip
From Fear to Flow
You can’t think your way into flow.
In a recent session with a Wingmates member, we explored what happens when you tip over into the red of anxiety on takeoff.
Performance drops as the perceived challenge increases causing stress to spike. But this is a subjective state. Two people can experience the same event with completely opposite inner experiences.
Once you’re aware of the agency you have over your inner experience, you become empowered to take control of it. You can literally switch your state. Anxiety can become playful excitement. The feeling is real but it is not a verdict.
But you can’t go from anxiety straight back into flow. And we can’t think our way there. “Thinking positive” won’t cut it.
If you tell yourself you’re just excited, but underneath you still feel fear, you’ll experience cognitive dissonance — feeling better, feeling worse, feeling better, feeling worse as you try to argue yourself into a better headspace. If you’ve ever known what you want to do but still couldn’t do it, this could be why.
Release first, then reset.
If you’re mildly in the red a simple flip of perspective from “I’m afraid” to “I’m excited” can be all it takes. But the deeper entrenched you are in the red the more important it is that you actually get into your body.
The mind and body are a single deeply connected system. So when you are stuck you are stuck both psychologically and physically. Before you can flip your state you have to release yourself from whatever is keeping you stuck.
For example: you’ve pulled up on takeoff and your glider is off in the bushes. Or you’ve gone too wide on the turn and fallen out the thermal.
The mental scolding begins - “ah you idiot, you should know better, you suck.” “Ah no now people are going to think I’m a bad pilot” or “ah now they’re going to fly away and I’m going to land, what are they going to think of me, I have to get back up” - take a moment here to reflect on your own negative self-talk in these situations.
What does your dictator say to you?
If you then just try to talk your way out of it - “I’m ok, I’ve got this” you get stuck in the cognitive mode. And you won’t be able to embody the new state. So you first have to be able to feel and release the emotion.
“Ag I’m pissed off that I did that” - release it, and then reset.
It’s important for you to discover what works best for you but release can be a big breath out (like breathing through a straw as you exhale hard), a little cry in frustration, a laugh, whatever feels appropriate in the moment.
The key is not to get stuck in rumination. You’re not trying to figure out what went wrong. You’re not trying to convince your dictator of anything. You’re just allowing the emotion to rise, pass through you, and be expressed.
Then you can reset using a method of your choice. You could do a playful dance, shake out your arms, sing a playful song, hum, shift your focus onto something external, say a mantra (let’s fucking go) - whatever helps to shift your physiology back to the desired state and then shift your attention onto the task at hand - in the moment, in your body, out of the mind - and if you’re lucky, flow will return.
How do you plan to release and reset?
P.S. This is the kind of work we do inside Wingmates. There are only three founding rate spots left before the price goes up and doors close for a while. So if you’re on the fence, now is the time to join the world’s first flow-focussed flying community.