Flow

The idea of "flow" comes from Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, a Hungarian positive psychologist. I have come across this idea a few times since I started grad school, and I think it is worth a post. It is a state of consciousness so focused that you are totally absorbed in an activity and lose track of time. It is a state of complete engagement with life in which you feel strong, alert, in effortless control, unselfconscious, and at the peak of your abilities. You are highly challenged by a particular situation, but also highly skilled at experiencing it, resulting in a peak level of confidence and satisfaction. The idea is to try to figure out which activities in life you feel like this, and to try to spend as much time as possible doing these activities. It is also worthwhile to try to re-frame everyday responsibilities and tasks as ones where flow is possible. 


I have tried brainstorming when I experience flow: baking, jogging (sometimes! when I have great energy), swimming, biking to school, dancing at our club (especially in the cage!), and having a spectacular night/weekend of sexiness, cuddling, eating, and sleeping with sexy friends.

I have noticed that since J and I have opened up, we have spent a lot of time with new friends, doing both sexual and non-sexual activities, and almost always lose track of time. We are both just having so much fun getting to know new people, emotionally, mentally, and sexually- I know I feel like myself and confident and happy. And we have definitely invested a lot of energy into making these situations happen as often as possible, because we have so much fun! It makes me even happier that we opened up, reflecting on how good we both feel spending our time and energy on getting to know other people and cultivating those relationships.