Living in the NOW: 1. Peak Experiences and Flow
Do you know those moments when for a little while you forget all your daily worries as a result of a unique experience? A moment when you become one with what you are experienc-ing and forget all and everything around you. Imagine that you are on top of a mountain and overwhelmed by the fantastic view. Imagine you are going to a concert and the music of the band gives you a moment of ecstasy. Imagine that you fall down during a bungy jump. Imag-ine that for half an hour you were convulsed with laughter with your friends. Imagine that you are really in love and kiss each other for the first time. All the examples mentioned above represent peak experiences in which you get totally involved in the moment. You forget all your worries and are one with what happens in the NOW.
This optimal state of experience is called "flow" in literature. During these situations we are highly conscious and only use our intellectual capacities and our common sense to experience the moment. We are focussed on one thing and our mind is no longer troubled by thoughts or worries about other matters, events or situations. In the state of flow we often lose the notion of time because we become totally one with what we are doing. If you want to know more about flow, then read our section What is Flow ? The question is how do you feel during these peak experiences? How happy were you during these moments and how did you feel afterwards? Did you feel mentally tired or were you content and satisfied? What happened to your frustrations, doubts, insecurities, anger and other negative emotions or other negative trains of thought?
If you are still not sure about what kind of situations we are talking about, then go back in you mind to moments when you were busy with your hobbies or when you experienced emotional moments like weddings, periods when you were in love, funerals, or moments when you enjoyed fantastic natural beauty during holidays. Or just go back in your mind to the most beautiful moment of your life. Were you then mentally evaluating those situations or was it simply impossible to experience them as negative? Mind: we are talking about those few seconds or minutes when you are totally absorbed in the moment and we are talking about the feeling shortly afterwards. Of course it is possible to consider certain experiences like funerals, when you look at them as a whole, negative and unpleasant. But when you go back to that one moment when you were deeply touched by grief or an emotional speech, can you still say that that one moment was not beautiful, but ugly? Is it possible to experience a sundown, the colour red, an eagle, a good joke, a twinkling or an emotional moment as ugly or negative?
Again: we are talking about the moment that you were experiencing and not about the thoughts that followed it. We are talking about the moment when on your snowboard you saw an extremely beautiful unspoilt field of snow in front of you and were ready to make the run of your life and we are not talking about a few seconds afterwards when you became stiff with fear because suddenly you thought of the danger of an avalanche and started to wonder whether the slope was not too steep for your limited skills. We are talking about the moments when your mind and your intellect no longer play any part and you are completely governed by your emotions and your instincts.
In this state of flow, in which we go through peak experiences, we are completely in the NOW and that is exactly what we try to achieve during our Meditations. During the day we pass, with various degrees of intensity, into and out of this NOW. During such a day we see a sundown, laugh about a joke, eat a nice sandwich, are touched by an event, hear beautiful music, etcetera. Most of us need an object or an experience to enjoy for a little while a short moment in the NOW. By means of Meditating it is possible to reach this state from within yourself and not through objects in our surroundings. Meditation enables us to reach this state whenever we want to in a short period of time without having to work hard for it or having to invest a lot.
Read the sequel on this subject about living in the NOW in the second article Doing instead of being.
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