The Warrior Scholar Ideal Blog: The Way of Flow 006

In the last instalment, we noted that it is by changing our perceptions, our understanding, of what we experience while under duress, while our amygdala is triggered, that we manage fear. Subsequent to reorienting our minds toward danger, we then must build the necessary skills to manage effectively in that state.

To this end, we must focus our attention during arousal on the skills we want, and want to develop in our bodies, as quickly as possible. The context of the experience in training must be properly framed, since it is context that allows us to make sense of it.

In our upcoming book, OVERCOMING FEAR -THE METHOD, we delve deeply into practical methods of how to develop this ability. As Robert A. Heinlein, succinctly said:

“At least once every human should have to run for his life, to teach him that milk does not come from supermarkets, that safety does not come from policemen, that 'news' is not something that happens to other people. He might learn how his ancestors lived and that he himself is no different--in the crunch his life depends on his agility, alertness, and personal resourcefulness.”

People who have experienced having to run for their lives, to “move with a sense of urgency,” as we say in the military, get it: There are not too many things in life that are as sobering as is the experience of fearing for your life.

As in the case of contact sports, regardless of a person’s athleticism, his skill at the game, until he gets knocked on his ass or punched in his face, he’s never going to be as good as he could be. He doesn’t yet get it. The art of managing in a state of arousal under duress is no different: A full appreciation for reality promises to forever elude a person until and unless he has that heart-in-the-throat experience.

Parents can all too readily relate to this. As parents, we fear for our children always, we fear for them more than we fear for our own lives. There is nothing we won’t do, no danger we won’t endure, even for the sake of our own lives. So even if we aren’t willing to risk our lives in order to save our own lives, we will most assuredly do it for our children.

This is the sort of thing Heinlein was speaking about.

But there is something else…

Along with the physiological changes we experience when under heightened arousal, there is a mental state we experience, a phenomenon called, “Flow.”

This state is not new to warriors and has gone by other names like, “Mushin,” “the Zone,” etc. In their excellent book, Stealing Fire, Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal discuss flow, and how achieving this state is one of the keys to optimal performance.

We all possess fear in varying degrees. We may not like it, but it’s the truth. Yet fear plays a big part in achieving Flow, or the Flow State. This is because the state of fear creates an intense arousal. It may even be a state of hyper-arousal. Precisely, though, because hyper-arousal could induce in a person who is unprepared to deal with it a “freeze” response, it is imperative that people train in advance to manage under duress.

The Flow state has also been described as transient hypofrontality (aka., transient prefrontal cortex deregulation). Those who undergo this feel as if they are daydreaming, or as if they are watching themselves from a third-party perspective (Dietrich, 2003).

Flow is essentially the same phenomenon as “Tachypsychia.” Here, one’s perception of time is altered. Time appears to either slow down or speed up, and one’s attention and even memory processes become heightened. Yet this state of mind arises in high-stressed or emotionally charged situations.

While in Flow, you are able to focus such that everything just melts away except what is before you, except for your sword and that of the enemy. In this state, all things under Heaven seems to fall to your will.

Because the person in the Flow state has achieved moral certainty and perfect clarity, he is able to move his body seamlessly and in such a way as to observe himself from what seems like a third person vantage point. He moves without hesitation, without irrational fear. He recognizes danger, yes, but he has at once the capability and the resolve to neutralize it. In Flow, there is a feeling of endless power, grace, and effortlessness.

When people are under duress, they undergo Flow, for Flow is a mechanism in the body that enables us to operate at a high level without much conscious thought.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, in this state of flow the frontal cortex does not shut down; rather, it repurposes resources to the areas of the brain that require the most energy. This is important to understand because you can still make decisions in this state. However, the capacity for complex decision-making is diminished during Flow.

For example, the chart below demonstrates that as stress increases, so too does arousal. The greater the demands, the greater the anxiety / stress. Yet this also means that the higher your skills relative to the demands or the level of stress, the more relaxed, and even bored, you become.

Simply put, the more skilled you are, the greater the level of stress you need in order to become aroused, to enter the Flow state (Cziksentmihalyi, 1990; Pifer et al., 2014).

That many insist that people cannot think while in this state of heightened awareness is due to the fact that they have the wrong training modality. They don’t train to develop their ability to make decisions in the body on the subconscious competence level. In other words, they don’t know what they are talking about.

It is the inability to confront their own fear that prevents many people from learning to skillfully manage it and, in so doing, reach optimum Flow. In other words, without fear (or stress or anxiety) there is no Flow. Without a sense of danger, there is no Flow. Reaching this state is what allows you to act and focus under duress.

To reiterate, we have to be exposed on some level to danger in order to experience the necessary levels of arousal to trigger the amygdala and force the brain to release the neurotransmitters that prepare the body for battle.

One of the reasons why we don’t like to experience fear is because of the way it makes us feel. Since we don’t like that feeling, we try to avoid it. Well, in case we weren’t clear above, allow us to summarize our position on this:

Ready for it?

Get over yourself…

No, really get over yourself!

You’re not the first person to feel this way, and you are far from being the last. You’re not “chicken.” You’re not a coward. You’re just human.

So, get over yourself!

And remember that the physiological process of fear, for as uncomfortable—as fucking awful!—as it is, exists in order to make it possible for you to protect yourself and your loved ones. It primes your body to act with an effectiveness that wouldn’t be possible without it. 

In the next post we are going to examine the Warrior Mind and address the importance of framing matters in proper context toward the end of managing danger.

Until then, thanks.

References

Cziksentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow – The Psychology of optimal experience. Harper.

Dietrich, A. (2003). Functional neuroanatomy of altered states of consciousness: The transient hypofrontality hypothesis. Consciousness and Cognition, Vol. 12, 231–256.

Kotler, S & Wheal, J. (2017). Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work. Harper Collins.

Peifer, C., Schulz, A., Schächinger, H., Baumann, N., & Antoni, C.H. (2014). The relation of flow-experience and physiological arousal under stress — Can u shape it? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 53, 62–69.

Jack Kerwick, Ph.D.

LtCol Al Ridenhour USMC (ret)

Authors, The Warrior Scholar Ideal Revisited