Activities

What activities do I lose myself in? Easy question. Anything creative, art related. Research. Staging. Hours fly by in minutes. Is that losing myself? Or finding?

I like this question because it hints at the idea of flow state. The falling out of time state. What happens when we lose awareness of our physical bodies, or things around us and we collapse fully into whatever we are focused on.

When I was first ‘diagnosed’ with ADHD I read a lot about the condition. One of the things that stuck out was the constant mention of what was referred to “hyper focus” Ironically, people with ADHD have two tendencies. One is to jump from thing to thing (multitasking is born of this). The other is to over focus on one thing. I felt like they were onto me, and yes, those are my super powers.

Things weren’t moving fast enough for anyone to see these traits as good back then, but luckily the pace has picked up and I don’t even think about ADHD as anything more than a possible like minded community.

It’s not an affliction for me because, I accept it’s down sides and have learned to play to its strengths.

Sure I rarely sit still, my attention span is what it is. If I’m bored, l start thinking about something else unrelated or jump ahead in a conversation. I geek out on random subjects and can’t stop my intense curiosity. My brain is at times in overdrive.

But do I understand and fully embrace FLOW.

It’s how yoga became a thing for me. Yoga gets me into a flow state every time. I can arrive with a head full of racing thoughts and leave one hour later detached and calm.

Doing art was how I used to achieve this mind space, but it didn’t always deliver. Art can be stressful at times. It has its sticky not very zen moments. Bringing something new into the world is labor. Yoga gave me practice and consistency. I got better at dropping in. This has helped me so much with doing art as well.

I know with certainty that I can close out the world and get an art project started or finished. I have my own little hacks. I have control now over this flowing. It used to show up by accident, (so it seemed). Conditions had to be right etc. Now I create the conditions. You might have guessed that slow breathing is how it starts, getting my parasympathetic nervous system onboard.

The middle of a project has many variables, decisions, and moments of uncertainty. It’s a whole thing. I have learned to relax, walk away, take breaks, sleep on it, basically try different things when I’m feeling off.

So yeah. Most of the time I lose myself doing things I’m captivated by. Art etc. I love when I lose track of myself and time.