#14 Flow States for Increased Productivity & How to Ride Their Wave All the Way to Healing

Entering a flow state means stepping into a state of deep focus, ease, and inspiration. I’ll show you how to use this state not only for greater productivity, but also as a powerful tool for healing and personal growth.


Beautiful day, my name is Karolina and I welcome you to my podcast Heal Yourself, where I will share my own journey of healing together with the experiences I have gathered as a guide on the path of healing the body and soul of others, so that you too can heal yourselves.

Entering a state of flow means getting into a state of deep focus, lightness and inspiration. I will tell you how to use this state not only for higher productivity, but also as a tool for your own healing and self-development.

Today’s episode I will start with another beautiful story that shows how our diagnosis can actually be the best thing that ever happened to us and can guide us in life in the right direction.

It is the story of Steven Kotler, an internationally recognized author of the bestseller Stealing Fire or The Art of Impossible. And his story also begins with a huge personal tragedy, when Steven was bedridden for three years, he had Lyme disease. In Czech I found it is called Lyme disease. It is a chronic illness that affects different people differently, but in his case it was very aggressive and he was constantly exhausted, he basically couldn’t function at all, he was absolutely dependent on others.

After several years, the doctors basically gave up on him and told him that he would most likely never recover and that he would have to live like this for the rest of his life, basically tied to a bed, completely dependent on the help of others.

And he himself describes that at that moment he was already thinking about suicide, because he didn’t want to live like that anymore. It seemed to him that his existence in that case was completely pointless and that he was only creating worries for others.

And he describes that one day a friend came to visit him and told him that he had to go surfing with her. And he looked at her like she was crazy, because he said: “I can’t even get out of bed, I can’t even go to the bathroom by myself, how can I go surfing, you’re completely crazy.”

But she didn’t give up and kept insisting that he simply had to go surfing with her, that it was vital for him, that he simply had to.

And so in the end he thought, okay, whatever, it doesn’t matter, I have nothing to lose, I can go surfing, at least I can show her that I definitely can’t surf.

So with the help of other friends they took him to the beach, dragged him to the surfboard and helped him get out to the lineup, to the wave.

He said it was a day when the waves were small, so it wasn’t that difficult, but he was still basically immobile, he couldn’t really do anything, so it was completely unclear how he would even surf.

And suddenly a wave came and he describes it as if he suddenly stepped out of his body, as if it suddenly wasn’t him. The pain completely disappeared, he suddenly turned the surfboard, started paddling, stood up on the board and rode the wave.

And everyone was just staring in disbelief and he himself didn’t understand what had just happened.

In that moment he said it felt like it wasn’t even him, as if suddenly his sick body was no longer sick and was able to do this thing, as if in that moment the illness didn’t exist.

There was no stress, no anxiety, no past or future, just the present moment and the moment of him surfing.

He rode that one wave, then collapsed again and couldn’t do anything else that day and had to be taken back.

But the fact that after three years he was able to stand on his own feet at all and ride a wave on a surfboard in a moment when he couldn’t do anything by himself kept him thinking.

And he was a scientist. And of course, the idea that surfing could cure you from a chronic illness was not at all grounded in science at that time. From a scientific point of view, it was a miracle what happened.

And he kept going. Every time he recovered a little, he went back to the beach, maybe that day he caught two waves, then again complete exhaustion and he had to go home.

And like this over and over again.

And within half a year he completely healed. The illness, the chronic illness, completely disappeared and he was completely fine.

From a moment when they told him there was no hope for him and that he would slowly die tied to a bed, within half a year he got to a moment where he was suddenly completely healthy and able to do everything.

And the only thing he changed, the only thing he used to heal, was the state of flow.

And for him, of course, it was something so unbelievable that happened, but he knew it happened, he knew he did it, because it was the reality of his body, and so he dedicated his life to researching what it was that helped him, what it was that healed him, and that thing, that state of consciousness, was flow.

And at that time we didn’t know much about flow, now we know a lot and we know that it is a state of absolute maximum focus on one thing and a moment when we become almost superhuman beings, when we suddenly can do things that normally wouldn’t be possible, when we suddenly can speak fluently, give a speech, when without flow we wouldn’t be able to do something like that at all.

When athletes are in flow, they perform incredibly, when artists are in flow, they suddenly play the piano like from another world.

This is flow, this moment when we are so absorbed in the activity we are doing that everything else disappears, time disappears and we are only that activity.

Even our ego disappears, our personality disappears, our fears disappear, that voice in our head that tells us “you can’t do this”, “you’re not good at this”, “you just messed it up”, “everyone thinks you’re stupid”, that voice is not there at all, and you are just focused on the activity, and if you are giving a speech, the words just flow through you, as if you’re not even the one saying them, as if some other force is doing the thing for you.

And flow is on a spectrum, so these basic states of flow you have definitely experienced at some point in your life, it’s that moment when you focus so much on something that you forget you’re hungry, you forget you need to go to the bathroom, you forget what time it is, suddenly time passes and you don’t even know how.

It can be when you are completely immersed in a game, in a sport, or when you get fully absorbed in a task, in some kind of work.

I personally experience flow very often when I teach.

When I teach yoga, when I teach meditation, the longer the class is, the more I can get into that state of flow, that’s why on my retreats I usually teach for two hours or more, because even for me the experience can become almost regenerative.

I am working, but the work doesn’t exhaust me at all, on the contrary, it energizes me.

Many times when I start teaching and I feel tired, when I’ve already done a lot and don’t have that much energy, after the class I often feel much better than before it, exactly because I was in flow.

And for us, flow on the level of brain waves is exactly the same as deep meditation.

And to get into flow, there are several clear conditions.

First, it has to be some uninterrupted activity, we need to have the possibility of uninterrupted attention on one thing, which for example for me, when I teach yoga or meditation, when I lead a class, this condition is always fulfilled, because I don’t have the option to suddenly think “I want to check my phone”, I am teaching a class, so it doesn’t even occur to me to interrupt my attention, and I am one hundred percent focused on the people in the class.

So while I am explaining what others should do, I have to pay attention and watch everyone in the class, whether they are doing it correctly, and if not, I go and correct them, at the same time during the classes I play different instruments and I always synchronize it with the music that is playing, so I pay attention that the music goes together with what I am teaching, and then of course I pay attention that when I show movements, what I say matches what I show, so that when I raise my right hand, I say right hand.

At the same time I pay attention to how I breathe and how I tell others to breathe.

There are many things that I have to focus on, and because there are so many things, in the beginning when I started teaching, I definitely was not in flow, and this is completely normal, when we are beginners at something, it is very hard to immediately fall into flow, because we have many doubts, we are nervous and the thing is almost slightly beyond our abilities.

It is beyond our ability to fully relax into it, because there are many things and we don’t yet have enough experience to be confident enough in what we are doing to just flow in it and be in that flow.

So before, I definitely was not in flow and I was stressed from the class and at the end of the class I was tired, because I was in stress most of the time.

Even if it was not visible from the outside, inside I was definitely not in a state where everything flows easily, and I had many thoughts, and when I made a mistake, it threw me off even more and made me even more unsure.

And now, even when I am in flow, it doesn’t mean I never make mistakes, sometimes I say something wrong, but I immediately know how to make a joke out of it and turn it into something funny so others laugh, and often it actually improves the class, and it doesn’t even occur to me to think that I am stupid because I said right instead of left, it doesn’t matter at all and it doesn’t take me out of flow anymore.

So the first condition is an uninterrupted block of time where we can focus on one thing.

And the second condition, which I already mentioned a little, is that the activity must be exactly on the edge between challenge and skill, so it has to be challenging.

If I was teaching the same yoga flow over and over again, I wouldn’t get into flow so easily, because it wouldn’t be a challenge for my brain anymore, I wouldn’t need to pay that much attention and I would start drifting into thoughts.

But when I constantly change the sequences and every class is at least a little different, it keeps me in flow, because it is a bigger challenge, but at the same time it must not be such a big challenge that it creates stress.

So this usually comes after some time, when we do something repeatedly and we become confident in it, we know we can do it.

At work, when I do something for the first time and my boss is watching me, there is a small chance I will be in flow, because I am nervous and doing it for the first time, so the stress is not yet balanced by the challenge.

But when we do it for a longer time, and it is not monotonous, there still has to be some challenge, so it is something we are confident in, we know we are good at it, but at the same time we are solving a new problem.

For example, when I play the piano, I know I can play, but I play a new piece or I play in front of a big audience, which is a new challenge, and that keeps my attention at one hundred percent.

With surfing, every wave is different, you almost never catch a wave and think “this is exactly the same as the previous one.” Every wave gives a slightly different challenge, and as you improve, you look for conditions that match your level.

So the better you are, the bigger waves you go for, and it is always a slightly bigger challenge, but when you reach a point where surfing is natural for you and you know what to do, when you catch the wave, all your attention must be in your body on that wave.

You cannot make a mistake, one mistake and it will wipe you out, so all your attention is on what you are doing, but at the same time you are good at it, you know you can ride the wave, it doesn’t create stress, you are not shaking on the board, because you know what to do, and that is flow again.

That perfect balance between challenge and skill, that is where we enter flow.

For example, Vittorio, because he has been meditating for a long time, can enter these states more easily even outside meditation, and it happens to him very often now that he is in the office, working all day, sometimes very long days, even up to fourteen hours, and then he comes back and you would expect him to be completely exhausted.

He is tired, but not completely drained, and when he looks at the data of what states of consciousness he was in, because he has the Oura ring that tracks it, he sometimes sees that he was in meditation for six hours straight, even though he was working in the office.

But it is usually during moments when he is in a meeting that lasts several hours and he has to solve a complex problem.

It is a challenge for him, something new, something he has to decide or solve, so the challenge is there, but at the same time he is confident in what he does, he knows he is good at it, so he can fully relax into it and it doesn’t create stress.

And for his brain, and you can see it in the data, it is as if he was meditating those five or six hours, but he was actually working.

And it is exactly the same as I described, that after my class I feel even more energized than before, even though I am doing many things and moving, it could be exhausting, but because I am in that state, for my whole system it is like deep meditation.

We are in a deep meditative state, which is extremely regenerative, it gives you energy as if you had deeply rested, as if you had been sleeping deeply, but you are productive.

You are doing something productive, but at the same time you are resting.

And that is such a powerful ability, to be able to access these flow states more and more, because then you can do anything.

Even if you work more, you don’t drain yourself, it actually energizes you, and the quality of your work is on a completely different level.

When I get into flow during a class, the whole class flows differently, I connect to people differently, I react differently, my presence feels different, my expression feels different, a completely different energy comes from me.

And it is the same for Vittorio, in flow he comes up with much better solutions, much more creative ideas, because his mind is completely quiet, there is no sense of time, he is only in the problem.

And the quality of the work is much higher, and it doesn’t exhaust you, it actually energizes you, which is a real superpower.

How do you recognize flow? First, when you are in it, you don’t recognize it, because the moment you realize “I am in flow”, you are out of it, because the mind turns on.

You usually realize it only afterwards, when you look back and notice that you lost track of time.

That is one sign.

And there are different levels, either you completely lose track of time and hours pass without you noticing, or time just feels different.

Another sign is complete absorption, you and the activity become one.

As Steven Kotler says, when surfers say they become the wave, people think they are just high, but they actually become the wave.

That is flow.

You truly become the activity, there is nothing separating you from what you are doing, you are in unity with it.

And when that happens, your self-awareness disappears, your body-awareness disappears, you disappear.

There is no “you” being bothered by thoughts, your ego disappears, your fears disappear, even your body disappears, you don’t feel pain, hunger, or the need to go to the bathroom, because there is only the activity.

And now back to the story of Steven Kotler, how is it possible that this state healed him.

Flow works very similarly to deep meditation, and in deep meditation you cannot be in stress, stress, anxiety and depression disappear, you are only presence, and in presence stress does not exist.

So stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol decrease, and at the same time serotonin, dopamine and endorphins increase, which support the immune system and help the body heal itself.

At the same time, as chronic stress decreases, chronic inflammation decreases, and with Lyme disease inflammation plays a huge role.

So even activity can be healing if it brings us into flow.

So try to create conditions for flow in your daily life, try to adjust what you do so that it is always a bit of a challenge, but not so much that it creates stress, so you can enter flow as often as possible.

Meditate, because the more you train this state in meditation, the easier it becomes to access it during the day.

And if you want to go deeper, in today’s episode I have a meditation, a visualization for you that will help you enter flow and learn to access it almost on demand.

It is a visualization you can listen to even on your way to work, so you start your day in a completely different state of mind, so you can perform at your highest level, so your work doesn’t drain you but energizes you, so you can have completely different creative solutions.

You can find this visualization in the description of this episode, I hope you enjoy it.

And thank you so much for listening, thank you for all your beautiful messages and feedback, and besides my online work I also organize Heal Yourself retreats, the next one will be again here in Italy in a beautiful place.

The place is incredible, the group that gathers there is always amazing, the energy is beautiful and it can be a truly transformative week full of healing and calm, for many people, in their own words, the most transformative week of their life, the best week of their life.

It is a chance to connect more deeply with yourself.

So if you would like to join one of my retreats, you can find the current dates in the description.

I put my whole heart into creating these retreats, truly a part of myself, and it is the best way to experience what I share through online courses and podcasts in a very deep and intense way.

Because we spend the whole week together, we eat together, we do everything together, and the schedule is designed so that there is also plenty of time to rest, because many of you come mainly to rest and disconnect from everyday life, but at the same time to be fully immersed and receive the maximum of what I can personally share with you during that week.

So thank you so much for listening and I am really looking forward to the next time, goodbye, hear you soon, and maybe even see you in person. ✨