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From the archived Rick and Carol EFT podcast series. The series is complete.
Episode #19 – Go with the FLOW
- What is the palpable sensation of going with the flow?
- The river of well-being…
- If you relax, you will easily notice the direction of the river.
- As you desire more, the river moves more strongly.
- If you do not go with the flow, or even fight upstream against it, you get beaten up—physically and emotionally!
- If you turn the wrong way, it is not SUPPOSED to feel good! That would be counter to your emotional guidance system.
- Tapping: Pick one tension-producing item from your to-do list and let’s tap on the physical sensations and the emotions.
- Sometimes we’re not quiet enough for long enough to feel for the flow.
- With practice, a short gratitude list can relax us and allow clarity for the next step.
Companion Guide
“Go with the flow” can sound passive, as though you should stop caring, stop choosing, and let circumstances decide. That is not the useful meaning here. Flow is the felt difference between moving with the deeper direction of your life and exhausting yourself by swimming against it.
You may still work, plan, practice, and make difficult choices. The question is whether the effort carries a sense of movement and aliveness—or the chronic strain of forcing yourself upstream.
This Guide Helps With
- feeling as if every decision requires force
- mistaking worry and stress for productive effort
- sensing the direction that has more life in it
- using gratitude to settle enough to notice the next step
- relaxing without abandoning practical action
Notice Where You Are Swimming Upstream
Choose one item from your calendar or task list that produces tension. Do not analyze it yet. Notice what happens in your jaw, throat, chest, stomach, shoulders, and breathing.
Then ask:
- What part of this task is actually necessary?
- What part is an inherited “should”?
- Am I trying to control someone else’s response?
- Is there a simpler sequence or a smaller next step?
- Does my body want a different timing, method, or direction?
The body is not a flawless fortune-teller, and discomfort does not automatically mean “do not proceed.” Sometimes the aligned direction includes courage, grief, learning, or a hard boundary. The useful distinction is between meaningful exertion and the repeated depletion of overriding yourself.
Worry Is Hard Work
Stress can create the feeling that you are doing something important. You rehearse every danger, push every outcome, and keep your muscles ready. Yet worry often consumes the energy needed for discernment and action.
Relaxing for a moment is not surrendering responsibility. It lets you check the current. Like watching a leaf on water, you can become quiet enough to see which way movement is already happening. Then you can decide how to respond.
Gratitude as Orientation
Gratitude is not a demand to pretend everything is fine. Use it to notice what is genuinely supportive right now: a person, a resource, a capacity, one thing already completed, one place your body feels steady.
That shift can loosen the fixation on what is missing. From there, the next step may become more obvious. If gratitude feels inaccessible, begin with something neutral and true: “This chair is holding me,” or “I have made it through this minute.”
Tapping: Finding the Direction of Easier Movement
Side of the Hand: Even though there are so many decisions and I feel as if I am working hard without making progress, I accept my efforts and choose to relax for a moment.
Even though worry feels like necessary work, I am willing to see whether it is helping me move.
Even though I do not yet know the right direction, I can listen for one next step with more ease in it.
Top of the Head: I have been working so hard.
Eyebrow: All these decisions and all this pressure.
Side of the Eye: Worry feels like hard work.
Under the Eye: Stress feels like hard work.
Under the Nose: I have been swimming upstream.
Chin: I am afraid to stop pushing.
Collarbone: What if relaxing helps me notice?
Under the Arm: I can pause without abandoning myself.
Top of the Head: I am listening for the current.
Eyebrow: What has a little more aliveness?
Side of the Eye: What can become simpler?
Under the Eye: I can release what is not mine to control.
Under the Nose: I can appreciate what is supporting me now.
Chin: One grounded next step is enough.
Collarbone: I can use effort without living in strain.
Under the Arm: I am open to moving with my deeper direction.
Take a breath. Return to the task you chose and notice whether a smaller action, a needed boundary, a question, or a period of rest is clearer.
A One-Task Flow Check
For one day, do not try to put your whole life “in flow.” Before each significant task, pause for ten seconds. Notice whether you are braced, scattered, or present. Ask what would make the next movement ten percent more congruent.
Sometimes the answer is to proceed. Sometimes it is to ask for help, change the order, tell the truth, or stop. Flow becomes practical when it helps you spend your life energy with greater awareness—not when it becomes another ideal you must perform.
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