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The mythology of "flow" theory

Rethinking dopamine, pleasure + pain

By Lia IkkosPublished 3 years ago 9 min read
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The mythology of "flow" theory
Photo by USGS on Unsplash

It's fashionable, gauche, self-aggrandizing, and very, very common practice to make everything we do look easy, acting as though it was nothing, like we pooped it out after breakfast. Finishing lines disappear as dust in the wake of the high performers - another milestone, another award, another publication, another house, another million, however you measure it. The achiever barely notices the attention it brings, while they're caught in the act of endless celebration, posting their life as a constant party, barely even mentioning their greatest, latest achievement.

Nobody, however, wants to talk about crossing the starting line. Where did they begin, how did it scale, how did it get them here? It's unglamorous to say, “I broke a million times.” If you ask them, you'll hear all about 'flow'. It's not said in the smoke of nirvana or with the petals of the 60s dripping in the air. Flow is an acknowledged state where we lose sense of time in the creative action of our productive faculties. Right? Another way of looking at it, backwards, is as a wolf (in sheep's clothing?) This idea is a little poisonous in a society based on comparison, high acclaim, and pressure to be the best version of ourselves every day. Great ease comes from nothing less than greater discipline, which when mastered, is called "flow".

Break down the mechanics of this state of flow and we will see what these high achievers who seem to easily and endlessly produce beauty in all its forms do in their minds. From understanding the mechanics of flow you will also see the way our malleable brain allows us to change. The idea that we can become anything we put our minds to is a little poetic, or is it?

The source of flow is stress. Deny it as we might, the only way to attain flow is by going through stress and this is the secret hiding in the silver lining of cloud 9 mask. The magician never shows his tricks. The point is for you to believe the high performers are gods, not to work out how they manufactured the state of godliness. The fact is that flow is on the other side of momentum, when the effort you have put in carries itself forwards, so you no longer have to do the leg work. What creates momentum? The agitation, confusion and stress that spark the fire within. This 'not good' feeling comes from the norepinephrine - a neuro-transmitter chemical - released in the brain. This is the stage we would colloquially call the “resistance” stage, when you’re putting it off. Pushing through this feeling of malaise constitutes crossing the starting line.

When the effort is put into passing through the discomfort - instead of walking away from it with apathy, self-pity, defiance, defeat, or any such natural reaction - the next chemical programmed in the brain to put you in a state of focus is called acetylcholine. The third and final component of the flow cocktail is the all famous dopamine, which is not quite what you think it is. When these three ingredients fuse, you can become anyone and do anything.

We are programmed to be in a state of discomfort in order to hunt the things we need. Imagine being a deer in the woods, thirsty, feeling restless until you detect the scent of water, then from the stream, tracing your way to the lake. You would go from a state of discomfort, to pursuit, to pleasure. This is how the sequence of chemicals is released, leading you from a place of lacking or needing, to one of having and wellbeing.

Norepinephrine gets you worked up, acetylcholine gets you on track, at which point the brain is tasked with measuring three variables: the duration of your required effort, the path towards your goal, and the desired outcome. Dopamine is the chemical released to keep you en route towards that outcome. This means then, that dopamine is not released on attainment of the goal or on the reaching of the destination. Dopamine is a process oriented drug, keeping you on track by marking the attainment of milestones. It is there to stop you from quitting when the duration seems too long, the path too steep, the outcome too far away.

As deers can smell water, the dopamine is released on the scent of the water trail, not when the water is on the tongue. After hours of searching, instead of collapsing asleep having failed to find the water, the smell of water triggers your dopamine to give you the extra miles, to keep you from folding into the exhaustion of hunting. Dopamine tightens the focus more for the activity that is required for our ultimate goal to be achieved.

We speak of dopamine as a drug, and the word "dope" meaning "cool" reflects the fact that the positive feeling it triggers in us is physiologically akin to the high of a drug. Alcoholism, behavioral addictions, drugs behave similarly, but they become systems of abuse when they force us into a cyclical loop. Just like dopamine narrows the focus on the goal to be achieved, the drugs force a progressive narrowing of the things that bring us pleasure. Pleasure is important. Mother nature has given our brains the capacity of neuroplasticity, dependent on the memory of what was pleasurable. Pleasure is supposed to be a program we operate on when the behavior is beneficial to us. When something feels good, it is so that we return to it, we recreate the actions that triggered it, reproduce the same conditions again in the future.

However, the pathway to this state of flow is through the portals of pain. We now think of the dopamine system as being about getting likes on Instagram. That’s a misconception. Yes we get addicted to getting the likes, but this is an oversimplification of the function of dopamine’s beauty. Dopamine's raison d’etre is to make people skilled, as high performers. It bonds you to what feels good. This is why there's a popular mantra that says "follow your bliss" or do what you love. Conservative thinking would cringe at this, and suspect a love of something, any skill or activity is doomed to failure because it's just not serious enough. Science disagrees.

Well, not entirely. Science has found that dopamine optimises our performance when we are able to award ourselves along any process, allowing us to wire new behavior - at any age.

As dopamine is produced internally, it's our job to take responsibility for what this means. Neuro-plasticity and growth mind-set are wrongly, socially tied to publically seeking validation. Validation is inherently an internal process, and we’ve been mistakenly looking for it from the world around us. This seeking outside imperatively blocks flow. To be the high performer it is paramount to be able to sit in frustration, and pass through focus, to take pleasure in the task at hand, almost forgetting about the outcome. The outcome happens when it happens, inevitably.

No one drips dopamine in your ear. Mother nature gave it to you so you may fulfill your life.

Do successful people love every moment of the challenge? Maybe, who knows. They definitely know how to reward themselves so they remain able to hold on to the idea of the big reward without needing to see it in the palm of their hand already. Something unattained is more exciting than their dreams being accomplished already. It feels good to walk up that hill.

This is a question of how you talk to yourself when at the bottom of that hill. When you can select the right thoughts, you can coordinate the flow circuits in the brain, the flow mechanisms, and you can start to build towards something: a business, a relationship, absolutely anything.

These systems are generic to enable us to do anything. The notion that there's a state of flow with a magic dimension on the other side of the superhero door is fundamentally misinformed. Anyone who has achieved success knows it from experience. It comes down to falling in love with process and daily rigor, having macro goals that allow you to calibrate towards your destination. Thoughts are spontaneous, and negative feelings and thoughts are fundamental to our awareness, our survival and development. Stop trying to block negative thinking and traumatic thoughts, for this will lead you to a state of stasis, paralysis and ultimately undoing.

The mantra of removing or not paying attention to negative thoughts is a disease. Instead, make negative ideas into calls to action. Motivation leads to momentum.

Now, quitting. What is that all about?

When we exert effort, noradrenaline is released in the brain. At some point enough noradrenaline is released to shut down cognitive control. This is when we quit, when we can't think straight or see the point to our efforts. But you can reset those levels, or obtain more gas and mileage. Think of the most awful endurance experience you've ever had. Picture it, remember that sense of dread in your body. You want to give up, stop, do anything by this. “Make it stop, please.” you cry in exasperation. Now imagine someone would have cracked the most pertinent joke at exactly the right moment. That sense of sudden release, transcending the environment, is instantly uplifting. That's dopamine! Smacking down nuroprenolin and knocking it back. You gain speed, energy, mileage, strength, and you can keep going again.

The ability to push through pain points is something exportable to all aspects of life. When you're on your knees, feeling hurt, down and out, just thinking "i'm still in the game" triggers the dopamine. Fight, don't fly. Then the flow will come. Granting yourself permission to stay the course, stay on track, is something no one else can do for you . That's why validation can and must only be granted internally. That's why it's so important to be able to look within.

Flow works without a gold star system, and we can thank schools for not teaching children to depend on them to motivate learning any more. Flow is the direct and tangible result of pain, which directly triggers the release of pleasure and it is in this conversion that we find flow.

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About the Creator

Lia Ikkos

The Singer Wrong Writer; London born, world raised. Lover of languages, liquorice, and horses.

Theatre Maker, Performer, Writer. See performance work at www.liaikkoscreative.com

Follow me @liaikkos

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