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Amina Aitsi-Selmi

Are you in your creative FLOW or in your reactive WOLF?

Have you noticed how there’s a sort of turbulence in the air? Return from holidays, new school year, extended pandemic, US elections, etc. So many sources of stress and uncertainty… Part of my self-care response to the pandemic was to become part of a mastermind for women running successful businesses ethically and holistically. We help each other operate from loving flow and tame the fearful wolf. And we’re all sensing that something’s in the air. The uncertainty and the possibility…

Uncertainty is possibility A few years ago, the uncertainty in my next career step transformed into sensing the opportunities offered by the world wide web… As a result, I found myself working in a business structure that I created from scratch, operated through online platforms and allowed for global reach from any location. But I had to suspend disbelief that something different was possible after a pretty conventional career, even when I couldn’t quite see the full picture (which was most of the time). Suspension of disbelief in what’s possible is essential to walking an independent path and leading from love rather than fear. Most of the time, you don't need to develop new positive beliefs. You just need to stop disbelieving the possibilities in front of you. How does it work? Well, you free up a lot of mental and physical energy when you disinvest from the negative mental noise running through your mind each day telling you that you can't do X or Y. That energy is then available to embrace possibilities and be used for creative flow rather than reactive fear.

Mastermind or masterheart? The Mastermind I'm part of is just as much a Masterheart. I would say, it’s both a ‘Mastermind-and-heart. Why? Because we’re all intuitive as well as logical. We all have conventional professional backgrounds (half of us are doctors…) and we’ve all expanded to new approaches including yoga, traditional Chinese medicine, and transformational coaching and practise conscious entrepreneurship. We like being in intuitive flow as well as thinking things through rationally.

Wolf vs flow Teresa in our group pointed out that FLOW is WOLF spelled backward. It also happens to be her surname. ‘How cool!’ I thought. Her name is a reminder that both modes are accessible to you at any time. You can check in at any moment with yourself and ask Do you choose to be in your wolf: hunting and fighting for survival? Are you acting compulsively on basic instinct and programmed conditioning? Or do you choose to be in flow: sensing opportunities and creating new worlds in wise response to emergent possibilities? Csikszentmihalyi whose whole research focuses on flow, describes flow simply as: merging action with awareness. In other words, flow requires something that animals don’t have as far as we know: awareness. Flow is something we humans experience in contrast to another state animals don’t seem to suffer from: chronic, anxious mental noise! You cut out the anxious middleman concerned only with survival (and therefore plagued by comparison and judgement) and allow your higher cognitive faculties to operate directly in the world. You’re no longer devoting energy to calculating and catastrophising in your head. All that matters is the (joy of) absorption in the mission you’ve chosen – one step at a time. Legend in the making: One of my clients in Presence Power and Possibility was feeling the pressure of having to find her purpose. She had taken a career leap and resigned from her job. The leap can feel exciting but also stressful due to financial uncertainty. We distinguished between life Purpose with a big P and daily purpose with a small p. We also worked transforming the belief “I must find my purpose now”. This enabled her to open up to new possibilities and find her next perfect role for now. This role looks after her immediate needs while opening up a range of new opportunities and giving her time to uncover her big purpose. It ultimately keeps her in flow. Recently, she had a vision of a future where local communities live harmoniously with each other and nature, which lit her up and weaves together different strands of her work. Ikigai!

Who are you? It was fun playing with the WOLF/FLOW dichotomy in our Masterheart-mind. It was part of our process in that moment in supporting and challenging each other to align with our next step into the unknown. But dichotomies are always false. Wolves are magnificent creatures who can teach us about deep connection, harmony and flow. Dichotomies are blunt distinctions that can help us make more nuanced choices – consciously rather than compulsively. So, if you choose to let go of all labels and external expectations to be something or someone in this moment, who are YOU? Have a great week,

Amina

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