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In daily mundane life where everything is planned from the start of the day till you call it a night, the phrase “going with the flow” kicks the mind. It feels good to say it that way. Doesn’t it? However, while making a decision the chatter in the mind regarding going with the flow vs planning often confuses you. Generally, the mind treats choosing an unknown path or an adventurous journey as going with the flow. But is that really intuition? Discovering yourself unravels new avenues of understanding the mind that help you get closer to your intuition. Also, clarity dawns and navigates you swiftly through the dilemma.
Planning has become an inseparable part of everyday life
From childhood, you have been learning that life is a predictable game. Societal teachings, elders, motivators, and family members align you to believe that firmly. Hard work is considered the only factor in achieving your life’s goals. If you aim for something and put in all your efforts then success is guaranteed. This is the mindset of more than 90% of the population. In that regard, planning has become an inseparable part of your everyday life, because planning as you generally conceive is a structured form of putting in hard work in anticipation of results.
Planning takes away a large part of your fear of the unknown. Your magnificent minds can foresee possible outcomes and map various scenarios that might crop up. In many instances, you have experienced how planning has saved you. It gives you a perception of safety and assurance to a certain degree that you are prepared. You are led to believe that your anxiety is taken care of with thorough planning. For all kinds of fears that are housed in your mind, planning offers a schema of protection. You can read more about fear, its origins, and ways to overcome it here.
Why does going with the flow matter?
The things we have been taught about predictability and planning are true but not the entire truth. It is an over-simplistic model devised by our limited minds. No mind can predict all the outcomes and plans for every scenario. Experienced people will testify how often all the planning has been rendered useless. Moreover, even within the purview of the limited scenarios that the mind was able to anticipate, planning may help you to favor your chances but not secure your success for certainty. However, the mind fixates and becomes dependent on the perceived reliability of the planning. When the deviation occurs, restlessness and devastation follow.
Shifting away from the mindset of a strictly planning-based approach toward life may seem to heighten your anxiety. However, on the contrary, it fixes your fear from the core. Only when you begin to anticipate different scenarios of the future before it has arrived, do you allow your minds to haplessly loop through the outcomes. Consider fear as a defect in a certain part of the production assembly line. Planning only offers a remedy at a later stage in that assembly line. It doesn’t prevent it from the source. Surrendering and going with the flow on the other hand cures your anxieties.
Certainty, reliability, and stability are mere illusory expectations of the mind in the ever-changing nature of existence. The more you long for it the more anxious you are bound to become. If your mind is engaged continuously in planning for these non-existent traits then you are missing the window of experiencing life as it is. The experiences may be pleasant or unpleasant but still, isn’t it worth experiencing the real phenomena rather than being swayed by imagination?
Understanding Intuition
Nothing exists with an independent existence and you are an interbeing like every other being. For example, your whole body is an interbeing even though you have separate hands, legs, ears, nose, etc. When your leg gets numb due to constant sitting then your hands also know about it and become cautious of not pressing it too hard. Deep down you already have the information of what’s outside and it can assess and render necessary actions. This deeper layer is called the heart and is separate from the physical heart. However, the upper layers of the mind that comprise the ego along with its conditionings/ impurities obstruct the access of intuition.
It becomes accessible only when your mind has become calm and the ego doesn’t unnecessarily create interfering disturbances. It is not always the unknown path or the adventurous trip to break away from the mundane. Most likely in those cases your ego is persuading you to go for an adrenaline-filled venture and convincing you to accept it as your intuition.
The heart never ceases to send out intuitive information but the outer mind attenuates that all the time with its fluctuating signals. During the flow state of work, many professionals can tap into intuition. Many writers, speakers, coaches, artists, mediums, lightworkers, etc. can readily access it by calming the ego-mind. When you are in a dilemma and your mind is in the mode of continuous evaluation, most likely going with the flow doesn’t have any meaning. To go with the flow you need to be able to seize the flow. If your boat’s propeller motor is on then you may feel that you have tapped into the flow of the river but it’s the motor leading you to believe that.
Going with the flow
Surrendering is necessary to get into the state of flow. Whether you believe in a higher power, universe, nature, absolute, god, etc. is immaterial. If you have that belief then it becomes easier but you can also yield to the higher cause. An athlete for example can drop his ego-mind for the higher cause of the national pride to go with the flow. The dissolving of personal ego with the collective ego of humanity, society, family, the universe, etc. enables you to surrender. Selflessness is the key factor in achieving the flow.
In the matters of personal decisions also there exists a higher cause. You have to learn to find it. For example, the decision to take an adventurous trip comes from intuition when you have surpassed the selfish desire to feel great about yourself, to feel the adrenaline rush, or to post on social media. If beyond such obvious calculated benefits, you still want to explore for the sake of curiosity; to transcend your current boundaries of mind and get merged with the newly expanded mind that would emerge; then you have really gone with the flow.
Role of self-discovery through practice
Knowledge alone may not be sufficient to break the hard conditioning of the mind. Turning it off to dissolve all the fear, judgments, greed, pride, etc. requires far more than just acquiring knowledge from different sources. It requires dedicated practice and the incorporation of discipline in life. Otherwise, the facets of knowledge may appeal to your mind for a few hours or a few days and soon the mind restores its original behavior. Only when the mind becomes calm and free from all disturbing fluctuating thoughts then it becomes ready to surrender and listen to the intuition.
Mindfulness practices like mindful breathing, mindful meditation, and regular journaling are required to break the hard shell of conditioning of the mind. Practicing yoga by strictly following its 8 limbs is extremely beneficial in this pursuit of tapping into intuition. These ancient techniques are excellent tools and are tried/tested methods for discovering yourself. They allow you to know yourself better, closely observe the workings of your mind, and realize the unknown truths about your mind’s tendencies. Self-discovery alone results in correcting its patterns. Rectification of the patterns inhibits the mind from its regular reactions and offers an opportunity to be stable and calm.
Planning is not all evil
Completely eradicating planning is not suggestive and may not be possible for humans. Even enlightened beings like Vivekananda and Sivananda had to plan the daily operations of their ashrams and other welfare activities. It would be difficult to steer through the chaos of regular life if planning is entirely taken of. However, one should unlearn the norms associated with it and relearn them using it as a tool that supports spiritual growth. It should be able to help you get rid of the anxieties and not add to them.
One should apply a heuristic approach to fit planning as a supportive mechanism for bolstering intuition. It has to find its place within the broader context of being driven by intuitive force. For example, once your intuition guides you toward path A, then you should plan how to get there. It would be foolish to completely leave everything to fate. There is a thin line between surrender and stupidity that becomes more evident as you mature in your spiritual journey.
May your intuition guide you toward a fulfilled life.
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