Latest / Silver FM 100.6 / How to find your flow state when you’ve lost it

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How to find your flow state when you’ve lost it · Silver FM 100.6

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Speaker 1: This week on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, we talk
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Speaker 2: Hey, it's Mariel Cigarra. You're listening to LifeKid. We have
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Speaker 2: a treat for you today.
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Speaker 4: NPR health and science correspondent Allison Aubrey has a new
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Speaker 4: show called Your Turn. It's here to help people navigate
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Speaker 4: midlife and to figure out what's next for them. So
0:40
Speaker 4: today you're going to hear an episode about flow, that
0:43
Speaker 4: state of euphoric, effortless immersion in a challenging task, and
0:47
Speaker 4: how a flow state can help you find purpose and
0:50
Speaker 4: momentum in your life.
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Speaker 3: Here's Allison.
0:55
Speaker 2: I think if you have ever felt stuck in life,
0:58
Speaker 2: like you've been doing the same thing for so long,
1:02
Speaker 2: Diane Allen's story is really going to resonate. She played
1:06
Speaker 2: violin for the Central Organ Symphony Orchestra for about 15 years.
1:11
Speaker 2: She was what they called the concertmaster.
1:18
Speaker 3: You know, so many people don't even know what that
1:19
Speaker 3: word means.
1:20
Speaker 5: So the concertmaster is the lead violinist, second in command
1:25
Speaker 5: to the conductor. And if you think about how an
1:29
Speaker 5: orchestra is set up, think of dominoes, because I'm right
1:33
Speaker 5: up front with the conductor, and however well or not
1:37
Speaker 5: well I was doing that day, that would have a
1:40
Speaker 5: ripple effect throughout the orchestra. So if I'm having a
1:46
Speaker 5: great day, that's going to ripple out throughout the orchestra.
1:49
Speaker 3: If I'm having a bad day, that's going to ripple out.
1:53
Speaker 5: So it was always expected of me to be at
1:55
Speaker 5: the top of my game, always deeply engaged.
1:59
Speaker 2: How many hours a day were you spending playing music
2:04
Speaker 2: or in these roles, as you describe, leading, help leading
2:08
Speaker 2: the orchestra?
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Speaker 5: During the week of an orchestra concert, we would have
2:13
Speaker 5: rehearsals every single evening. And we would do, I think
2:19
Speaker 5: it was three shows over the course of the weekend
2:21
Speaker 5: to satisfy demand. In between, I was teaching violin, so
2:25
Speaker 5: I would have violin students all day long, Monday through Friday.
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Speaker 2: I mean, the violin was everything to her. I mean,
2:36
Speaker 2: she did it morning, noon, night, and she had played
2:38
Speaker 2: in so many concerts. Then one night, she was preparing,
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Speaker 2: as she had done many, many times, and she suddenly
2:45
Speaker 2: felt off.
2:49
Speaker 3: I'd turn around, sit down, give a big cue for
2:51
Speaker 3: the music to start. And I couldn't move.
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Speaker 5: For some reason, I had a stress response that prevented
3:01
Speaker 5: my arms from being flexible.
3:03
Speaker 3: My elbows were frozen.
3:05
Speaker 2: At that moment, she was completely caught off guard. She
3:09
Speaker 2: certainly did not have words for it. She just knew
3:11
Speaker 2: it was this terrifying feeling.
3:14
Speaker 5: I literally was saying to myself, just keep moving, just
3:17
Speaker 5: keep moving. My colleagues were looking literally, eyes over the
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Speaker 5: music stand, completely open. staring at me like, we can't
3:25
Speaker 5: hear you because I was using such a tiny amount
3:29
Speaker 5: of my violin bow that.
3:30
Speaker 3: The sound wasn't producing. And it feels like an hour.
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Speaker 3: It really only took about a minute for me to
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Speaker 3: regain the full use of my arms.
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Speaker 5: But then there was this disconnect. I was just playing
3:44
Speaker 5: the notes. I could not feel the music and I
3:48
Speaker 5: could not figure out why that would even be. And
3:53
Speaker 5: I literally felt like my reputation and job security were
3:57
Speaker 5: going to be at stake if I couldn't crack this nut.
4:00
Speaker 2: I mean, music is central to Diane's identity. And this
4:03
Speaker 2: started very early in her life. Do you remember a
4:07
Speaker 2: moment early in those years when you first started playing violin,
4:11
Speaker 2: where it really clicked?
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Speaker 5: I'm 15, and I'm in my room, and I'm blasting
4:17
Speaker 5: the music. And.
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Speaker 3: You know, I'm not listening to rock and roll. Of course,
4:22
Speaker 3: I'm listening to a violin concerto. And I had this
4:25
Speaker 3: full on, you could call it a daydream.
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Speaker 5: I really think I was having an intense flow state experience.
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Speaker 2: So she uses that word flow and it totally catches
4:44
Speaker 2: my ear. Now, flow is that feeling that makes you
4:47
Speaker 2: feel completely absorbed in whatever you're doing, like you're lost
4:51
Speaker 2: to the moment. But it's also a scientific term.
4:55
Speaker 5: Where I literally felt like I was the soloist. I
5:01
Speaker 5: was pouring the core of my soul into every note
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Speaker 5: I play. I even remember the gown that I was
5:07
Speaker 5: wearing and the twinkles on it, right?
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Speaker 2: But now, here she is. She's an adult. She has
5:13
Speaker 2: tons of experience performing on the violin. But suddenly she
5:19
Speaker 2: can't find it anymore. She can't find that feeling.
5:22
Speaker 5: I'm sitting on stage playing a Beethoven symphony without any
5:26
Speaker 5: emotion or any flow.
5:28
Speaker 2: And there was a lot going on in her life
5:31
Speaker 2: at this time. A lot of the things that hit
5:33
Speaker 2: many of us in midlife.
5:35
Speaker 3: My son was at the height of his teenage rebellion.
5:38
Speaker 3: My mom had Alzheimer's.
5:40
Speaker 5: And I was just... going through the motions. I felt
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Speaker 5: like a piece of cardboard, just dead inside, numb, right?
5:49
Speaker 5: My students started leaving me for other teachers. They were
5:53
Speaker 5: sensing that I was off. And it was a really,
5:56
Speaker 5: really dark time.
5:58
Speaker 2: And so she decides to call it a day. She
6:01
Speaker 2: quits the orchestra.
6:04
Speaker 5: And I apologized to the conductor and I said, I'm sorry,
6:07
Speaker 5: I will not be able to be of service because
6:10
Speaker 5: I'm not in a state to where I can serve.
6:16
Speaker 2: I think as women in midlife, we can all relate
6:19
Speaker 2: to that feeling. I'm Alison Aubrey, and this is your turn.
6:23
Speaker 2: It's a new podcast that will hopefully feel kind of
6:26
Speaker 2: like a roadmap for midlife. We're going to talk about
6:29
Speaker 2: all the twists and turns of navigating this often messy
6:33
Speaker 2: next stretch, the obstacles, the opportunities. My plan here is
6:38
Speaker 2: to pair science with wisdom. And I want to hear
6:41
Speaker 2: your stories. So I'm glad you're here. In this first episode,
6:45
Speaker 2: we will explore the science of the flow state. You
6:48
Speaker 2: know that feeling when you look up from something and
6:50
Speaker 2: you realize hours have gone by? That's flow. And in midlife,
6:55
Speaker 2: it can be an important signal. Paying attention to that
6:58
Speaker 2: feeling or maybe returning to the things that brought you
7:02
Speaker 2: that feeling earlier in your life. This may be one
7:05
Speaker 2: of the best clues you have about where you want
7:08
Speaker 2: to go next. We're going to hear more from Diane Allen,
7:11
Speaker 2: who lost her flow and then was trying to find
7:14
Speaker 2: it again. And also from Richard Husky, who studies the
7:17
Speaker 2: flow state and how each of us can find it.
7:24
Speaker 6: American journalist Austin Tice vanished in Syria over a decade ago.
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8:13
Speaker 8: Hi, it's Terry Gross.
8:15
Speaker 7: Ladies and gentlemen, I can say that now because this
8:18
Speaker 7: administration thinks there's only two genders and I'm both of them.
8:23
Speaker 8: That's actor and drag king Murray Hill. In the series
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Speaker 8: Somebody Somewhere, he played the host of a queer cabaret,
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Speaker 8: which is something he's done plenty of in real life, too.
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Speaker 8: Listen on the NPR app or wherever you listen to
8:35
Speaker 8: fresh air.
8:37
Speaker 9: My name is Richard Husky, and I'm an associate professor
8:39
Speaker 9: at the University of California, Davis.
8:42
Speaker 2: Richard Husky is a communication and cognitive scientist who studies
8:46
Speaker 2: what happens in the brain during flow.
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Speaker 9: My lab studies a lot of things, but we're generally
8:51
Speaker 9: really interested in motivation, why people persist when things get
8:56
Speaker 9: really difficult, why we can find really difficult things enjoyable.
9:00
Speaker 9: And we typically study that from a framework that draws
9:03
Speaker 9: on something called flow theory.
9:08
Speaker 2: So an easy way to explain what he does is
9:10
Speaker 2: he takes pictures of a person's brain when they're doing
9:15
Speaker 2: an activity that can put them into flow. And he's
9:18
Speaker 2: trying to understand, like, what's happening in the brain? Like,
9:20
Speaker 2: what parts of the brain are working together or differently
9:23
Speaker 2: that might explain why flow can elicit the feelings of
9:29
Speaker 2: almost bliss or euphoria?
9:31
Speaker 9: There's all sorts of different names that flow goes by.
9:34
Speaker 9: The Secret to happiness, an alternate state of consciousness, a
9:38
Speaker 9: peak performance period. Really, all of these things kind of
9:42
Speaker 9: circle around a key idea that flow is this optimal experience.
9:45
Speaker 9: And it's an optimal experience that feels like five things.
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Speaker 2: The first one is you lose a sense of time.
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Speaker 9: During flow, it feels like the time passes by really,
9:56
Speaker 9: really quickly.
9:57
Speaker 2: The second thing is that people lose a.
9:59
Speaker 6: Sense of time.
10:00
Speaker 2: Self.
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Speaker 9: So when I'm experiencing flow, I'm not busy thinking about
10:03
Speaker 9: the dishes or that meeting and how it went. And
10:06
Speaker 9: if I did it right or wrong, I'm really focused
10:08
Speaker 9: on the flow task itself, not my own inner monologue.
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Speaker 2: There's also a feeling that you're in control.
10:14
Speaker 9: Flow feels incredibly in control. We know what we need
10:17
Speaker 9: to be doing. while we're experiencing flow and we're doing
10:20
Speaker 9: it quite successfully.
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Speaker 2: Number four is that when you're in the flow state,
10:24
Speaker 2: it doesn't feel physically or mentally taxing.
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Speaker 9: This is sort of like the runner's high, right? If
10:30
Speaker 9: you look at marathon runners, sometimes around like mile 18,
10:33
Speaker 9: they can even have a really giant smile on their face. But,
10:35
Speaker 9: you know, it doesn't mean the marathon isn't taxing. They
10:38
Speaker 9: collapse across the finish line. But in that moment, they're
10:41
Speaker 9: not feeling all that physical or mental taxation.
10:45
Speaker 2: And finally, number five. Flow leads to a euphoric state.
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Speaker 9: Just like the runner's high, flow feels incredible.
10:54
Speaker 2: You can feel exhilarated, elated.
10:57
Speaker 9: Flow is a highly rewarding experience that we often do
11:01
Speaker 9: towards self.
11:03
Speaker 2: So first, let's take just a minute for a brief
11:06
Speaker 2: history of flow theory. There was this scientist, his name
11:10
Speaker 2: was Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He was a Hungarian-American psychologist, and he
11:15
Speaker 2: coined the term flow. He introduced the idea with a
11:18
Speaker 2: book titled Beyond Boredom and Anxiety back in 1975. And
11:23
Speaker 2: in the book, there were artists and athletes who described
11:27
Speaker 2: the flow state as akin to kind of being carried
11:30
Speaker 2: along with the water or carried by the flow. Now,
11:35
Speaker 2: Csikszentmihalyi had a whole bunch of collaborators, and he went
11:38
Speaker 2: on to publish a bestselling book in 1990. So the
11:41
Speaker 2: question for us is, like, how do we find flow?
11:45
Speaker 2: How do we actually achieve this flow state?
11:48
Speaker 9: There are sort of three circumstances under which we're most
11:51
Speaker 9: likely to feel flow. And those are instances where we
11:55
Speaker 9: have really clear goals. We know what we need to
11:58
Speaker 9: be doing and why we're doing it and what successful
12:00
Speaker 9: looks like. We're getting very immediate real-time feedback about our
12:05
Speaker 9: progress towards achieving those goals.
12:07
Speaker 2: Like feedback from within or feedback from outside?
12:10
Speaker 9: Oh yeah, cool question. So feedback from both. So external feedback,
12:15
Speaker 9: I did something and it either worked or didn't, or
12:18
Speaker 9: some monitoring about how well you're working towards accomplishing a goal.
12:23
Speaker 9: So monitoring if you're a musician, where you are in
12:26
Speaker 9: the song, and monitoring, oh, the next difficult part is
12:29
Speaker 9: going to be coming up. I need to be ready
12:31
Speaker 9: for that, things like that. And then the last part
12:34
Speaker 9: is a challenge in skill balance. So things need to
12:38
Speaker 9: be difficult. Flow experiences don't happen for simple tasks. So
12:43
Speaker 9: there needs to be a balance. The task needs to
12:45
Speaker 9: be quite difficult. And our skill at that task needs
12:49
Speaker 9: to be quite high. And when we have all those
12:51
Speaker 9: three things together, we should experience flow.
12:54
Speaker 3: I wasn't even taking the violin out of the case.
12:57
Speaker 2: This is Diane Allen again. And at this point in
13:00
Speaker 2: her life, she thought she was finished. She thought the
13:04
Speaker 2: violin was something she'd never touch again.
13:07
Speaker 3: I had a.
13:08
Speaker 5: Gorgeous, gorgeous antique violin. violin that had been my musical
13:14
Speaker 5: voice for decades. I was so done, I sold it.
13:20
Speaker 5: I sold my musical voice.
13:23
Speaker 2: That must have been a hard moment.
13:27
Speaker 3: It wasn't. I was done.
13:28
Speaker 5: But I think it was so shocking to other people.
13:33
Speaker 5: I was like, I really am moving on.
13:38
Speaker 9: When we think about our sources of flow, we grow
13:42
Speaker 9: throughout our lifespan. Things that were initially difficult get easier.
13:47
Speaker 9: Our skill increases. Sometimes that's a technical skill. Sometimes it's
13:52
Speaker 9: a cognitive skill. I hear writers talk to me about
13:55
Speaker 9: how their writing quality continues to improve over their lifespan,
14:00
Speaker 9: and then they have to be doing more technically difficult
14:03
Speaker 9: or more creative writing pursuits to recreate and feel that
14:07
Speaker 9: flow experience. So Flow experiences happen and change across our lifespan,
14:13
Speaker 9: not just because of some physical characteristic of our everyday life,
14:16
Speaker 9: but also some cognitive characteristic of who it is that
14:19
Speaker 9: we are.
14:20
Speaker 2: So when you study flow, what are you looking for? Like,
14:23
Speaker 2: can you actually measure this state of flow in the brain?
14:27
Speaker 9: That's what we've been trying to do.
14:30
Speaker 10: So.
14:32
Speaker 9: As you might imagine, I've described all of these really complex,
14:36
Speaker 9: complicated tasks, snowboarding, creating art, making music, cooking, doing yoga.
14:41
Speaker 9: Those are all the sort of things where we find
14:43
Speaker 9: flow in our everyday life, but are really, really difficult
14:47
Speaker 9: to bring into the research lab, especially what my lab does,
14:50
Speaker 9: which is functional neuroimaging. We take a very large MRI
14:55
Speaker 9: and we try to scan your brain while you're experiencing flow,
14:59
Speaker 9: which is Can't do yoga when you're doing that.
15:02
Speaker 2: Or snowboarding.
15:03
Speaker 9: Certainly can't snowboard. And so what we try to do
15:08
Speaker 9: is find alternative things that I can have you do
15:11
Speaker 9: while in a big scanner that might still elicit flow.
15:17
Speaker 9: And for us, that is usually having people play some
15:21
Speaker 9: sort of video game. In his earliest writings, Csikszentmihalyi described
15:25
Speaker 9: games as excellent flow experience.
15:27
Speaker 2: Why?
15:27
Speaker 9: Because you can control all of those things that we
15:31
Speaker 9: think cause flow. And so we put people into the scanner,
15:35
Speaker 9: we scan their brains while they play video games, and
15:37
Speaker 9: we look to see what is their brain doing when
15:40
Speaker 9: they're experiencing flow.
15:42
Speaker 2: And when Husky and his team looked at these scans,
15:45
Speaker 2: they saw two distinct parts of the brain that are
15:48
Speaker 2: very active during the flow state. The first is the
15:51
Speaker 2: part of the brain that allows you to plan and
15:53
Speaker 2: also to control your behavior. The second is the part
15:57
Speaker 2: of the brain involved in reward processing.
16:01
Speaker 9: We see that those two parts of the brain are
16:03
Speaker 9: actually really well connected. It seems like the part of
16:07
Speaker 9: the brain that is giving us information about reward is
16:11
Speaker 9: talking to the part of our brain that's giving us
16:13
Speaker 9: the ability to control our actions and behavior and says,
16:16
Speaker 9: keep going, keep doing this, this is worth doing, this
16:20
Speaker 9: is feeling great, this is worth your time and energy.
16:23
Speaker 2: And when you first saw those results, like as a scientist,
16:27
Speaker 2: what did you think? Like, aha, this is telling us something?
16:34
Speaker 9: That was actually a flow experience for me, if I'm
16:37
Speaker 9: really honest. It was late at night in the lab.
16:40
Speaker 9: Everybody had gone home. And I was sitting at my
16:45
Speaker 9: computer and this analysis that I had been working on
16:50
Speaker 9: for months finally wrapped up. And I saw these findings
16:55
Speaker 9: and it was just this really kind of incredible experience.
17:00
Speaker 9: I don't know how to describe it. For the very
17:02
Speaker 9: short moment, I knew something about the world that nobody
17:04
Speaker 9: else did.
17:07
Speaker 2: What did you see in these brain scan results that
17:10
Speaker 2: made you go, aha, there's something here. There's something magical
17:16
Speaker 2: about flow.
17:17
Speaker 9: One of the tests that we were trying to do
17:18
Speaker 9: was to understand the why flow doesn't feel physically or
17:25
Speaker 9: mentally taxing, at least in the moment. We described that
17:30
Speaker 9: flow is a high difficulty task that requires a tremendous
17:33
Speaker 9: amount of skill. You should expect that that feels challenging,
17:37
Speaker 9: because it certainly is. And one of the things that
17:40
Speaker 9: I discovered that night was that when we are in flow,
17:46
Speaker 9: our brain is actually reconfigured into a metabolically efficient or
17:52
Speaker 9: energetically efficient state our brain is actually using a little
17:56
Speaker 9: bit less energy when we're in flow even though the
18:00
Speaker 9: task is really difficult we're putting a lot of cognitive
18:02
Speaker 9: resources to it the brain has reconfigured itself into a
18:05
Speaker 9: state that is using a little bit less energy and
18:08
Speaker 9: maybe that's explaining why we're not feeling that taxing demand
18:13
Speaker 9: when we're experiencing.
18:14
Speaker 3: Flow Wow, wow, and wow.
18:17
Speaker 2: Because what you're saying, if I'm hearing this correctly, is
18:21
Speaker 2: that doing the thing you love, the thing that makes
18:24
Speaker 2: you feel euphoric, even when it's taxing, actually is requiring
18:29
Speaker 2: less of you because your brain is sort of reorganizing itself.
18:33
Speaker 3: Is that right?
18:34
Speaker 9: That's right. And this is something that neuroscientists see regularly
18:38
Speaker 9: associated with mastery. When you're learning something new, The brain
18:44
Speaker 9: marshals all of its resources to try to figure out
18:47
Speaker 9: how to do that new thing. It requires a ton
18:49
Speaker 9: of energy. It's really mentally taxing and mentally demanding. And
18:53
Speaker 9: your brain is expending all this energy trying to figure
18:56
Speaker 9: out how to do this brand new thing. But with
18:59
Speaker 9: practice and skill acquisition, as mastery emerges, we actually see
19:04
Speaker 9: that the brain kind of figures out, oh, I don't
19:06
Speaker 9: need to be doing this thing to accomplish that task successfully.
19:09
Speaker 9: I can spend a little less energy on it. And
19:12
Speaker 9: so your brain figures out this optimal configuration as you
19:16
Speaker 9: work towards mastery.
19:19
Speaker 2: After the break, how to find your flow if you've
19:22
Speaker 2: lost it.
19:23
Speaker 3: We'll be right back.
19:30
Speaker 2: On the next ThruLine from NPR. I was surprised that
19:33
Speaker 2: this man every single day takes a chair and.
19:37
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19:43
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19:45
Speaker 2: We travel through the past four seasons of ceasefire in
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Speaker 2: Gaza with NPR. Enes Baba.
19:53
Speaker 11: This fall, there are a lot of movies and TV
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Speaker 11: shows on tap for you to see. And we're as
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Speaker 11: excited for all of it to arrive as you are.
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Speaker 2: On Pop Culture Happy Hour, we've.
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Speaker 11: Got a guide to what's worth keeping on your radar.
20:06
Speaker 11: Listen via the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
20:11
Speaker 3: I couldn't believe how deep I was in a dark place.
20:17
Speaker 2: So back to Diane. And at this point in her life,
20:20
Speaker 2: she's not great. She's feeling overwhelmed by family obligations, caring
20:25
Speaker 2: for her mom, her son. And she's quietly asking herself
20:29
Speaker 2: something that so many of us wonder in midlife. Like,
20:34
Speaker 2: who am I now?
20:35
Speaker 3: So often we are like the frog in the water.
20:42
Speaker 5: We don't know how stifled we are or how much
20:46
Speaker 5: we have to put ourselves aside to take care of
20:48
Speaker 5: our family.
20:49
Speaker 2: Then one day she goes to see this documentary. It's
20:52
Speaker 2: about the founding of Meow Wolf. Meow Wolf started as
20:56
Speaker 2: this countercultural kind of DIY group that basically was repurposing
21:01
Speaker 2: junk into art. And they would create these big art
21:04
Speaker 2: installations and throw big parties, inviting people to come experience
21:09
Speaker 2: the art. and do with it what they wanted. You
21:13
Speaker 2: could walk into a secret passage, there'd be neon blinking, touchable,
21:17
Speaker 2: hands-on art. It was all so new to Diane.
21:21
Speaker 5: They were questioning, who's to say that this is art?
21:25
Speaker 3: Who's to say this is not art?
21:27
Speaker 5: Who's to say this art that you see in Santa
21:30
Speaker 5: Fe galleries is what's, you know, valuable.
21:34
Speaker 3: This is what art is.
21:36
Speaker 2: And remember, she's used to the kind of rigid world
21:40
Speaker 2: of orchestra, of classical music. And suddenly she's going like, oh,
21:44
Speaker 2: my God, like, whoa, like this can be art.
21:48
Speaker 3: She used to say that what we do is not art.
21:50
Speaker 3: They were questioning everything. And it was so thought provoking.
21:54
Speaker 3: I could not sleep that night. I was thinking about
21:58
Speaker 3: it and thinking about it.
21:59
Speaker 2: And she's feeling like she's ready to explode.
22:03
Speaker 5: Really, I felt like my brain had been shaken up
22:06
Speaker 5: like a snow globe, and in a good way.
22:09
Speaker 2: She's got so much bubbling up inside, and music had
22:14
Speaker 2: always been to take what was on the inside of
22:17
Speaker 2: her and share it with the world.
22:19
Speaker 5: And when I woke up the next morning, I felt
22:23
Speaker 5: like this power of the violin coming back into my life.
22:30
Speaker 2: So she runs back to the violin, the thing that
22:34
Speaker 2: she knew how to play.
22:35
Speaker 5: I called my friend Janet, who was on stage with
22:37
Speaker 5: me the day that my elbows froze.
22:40
Speaker 3: And I said, can I borrow a violin? She comes
22:42
Speaker 3: right over that morning.
22:44
Speaker 5: And so I played some Bach and I was like, no.
22:47
Speaker 5: And I played a pop tune. It was Leonard Cohen's
22:50
Speaker 5: Hallelujah is what I played.
22:54
Speaker 3: And I was like, oh, I'm not done playing the violin.
22:57
Speaker 3: I'm done with classical music.
23:00
Speaker 2: I mean, it was this complete revelation. You know, she'd
23:04
Speaker 2: thrown the baby out with the bathwater. She knew how
23:07
Speaker 2: to play this instrument. And though she was giving up
23:11
Speaker 2: on being a concertmaster, on being a classical violinist, suddenly
23:17
Speaker 2: she had this new way to express herself with the
23:20
Speaker 2: same instrument. using the instrument in a completely different way.
23:24
Speaker 5: You've got composers from a lot of different European countries.
23:29
Speaker 5: You've got composers from a lot of different eras. And
23:32
Speaker 5: when you are a classically trained musician, you are expected
23:37
Speaker 5: to play Beethoven a certain way.
23:40
Speaker 3: You're expected to play Haydn a certain way. And Beethoven,
23:44
Speaker 3: you could lay into it, play loud. Haydn is very
23:47
Speaker 3: light and delicate.
23:49
Speaker 5: And the way I like to describe it is that
23:52
Speaker 5: If you were to learn a foreign language, okay, it
23:57
Speaker 5: might be endearing if you have an accent. But if
24:01
Speaker 5: you have an accent in your classical music playing, it
24:05
Speaker 5: is shunned. You have to put your voice aside and
24:10
Speaker 5: you have to sound like you don't have an accent.
24:12
Speaker 5: Does that make sense?
24:14
Speaker 2: Think about it. When you sit in an orchestra, you're
24:17
Speaker 2: one job. is to blend in, to be a perfectionist,
24:20
Speaker 2: to play the notes that somebody else has written. And
24:23
Speaker 2: then suddenly she's thinking to herself, whoa, I get to
24:27
Speaker 2: have my own accent here.
24:30
Speaker 3: And I came alive. Okay, here come the tears again.
24:37
Speaker 3: I was the concertmaster again.
24:40
Speaker 2: So playing Leonard Cohen was kind of like a first step.
24:43
Speaker 3: I started writing my own music. That was the game changer, Alison.
24:49
Speaker 3: That was the game changer. When I started writing my
24:52
Speaker 3: own music, it just made all the difference.
24:55
Speaker 5: I think that the authenticity was missing.
24:59
Speaker 2: This is actually Diane playing her music. She's thinking, aha,
25:08
Speaker 2: if I can lose my flow and find it again,
25:11
Speaker 2: this is a form of magic that I want other
25:14
Speaker 2: people to know about. So interestingly, this sort of turns
25:18
Speaker 2: her to using her words to describe finding Flo. So
25:23
Speaker 2: she started giving keynote speeches, combining her music and telling
25:28
Speaker 2: her story about finding Flo again.
25:31
Speaker 5: And when I brought all those pieces together, man, everything
25:35
Speaker 5: since then has really taken off. I felt like I
25:39
Speaker 5: was using my voice. I wasn't trying to fit into
25:43
Speaker 5: somebody else's music. And what's very interesting is, is I
25:48
Speaker 5: could play my own music over and over and over again,
25:51
Speaker 5: and I don't.
25:51
Speaker 2: Get sick of it. So I took Diane Allen's story
25:58
Speaker 2: back to Richard Husky and asked him for some practical advice.
26:02
Speaker 2: How do you think someone can find flow if they
26:06
Speaker 2: feel like they've lost it? For people who are in
26:09
Speaker 2: the midst of a transition and they're saying, I want
26:12
Speaker 2: that feeling of euphoria. I want that feeling that my
26:15
Speaker 2: life matters, that I have purpose, that there's joy and
26:18
Speaker 2: adventures to look forward to. How is it? Like, what's
26:23
Speaker 2: a good on-ramp to finding your flow again?
26:26
Speaker 9: This is a great question. And the first piece of
26:30
Speaker 9: advice I would offer is don't think that you need
26:34
Speaker 9: to pick up something brand new. I mean, you can,
26:38
Speaker 9: but if you do, you need to be really patient
26:39
Speaker 9: with yourself. And so I'll give you an example of this.
26:42
Speaker 9: I've been working on developing a yoga practice. And yoga
26:47
Speaker 9: for me is not typically a flow experience. And for
26:50
Speaker 9: a really long time, it was never a flow experience.
26:54
Speaker 9: But I had knee surgery, I had to rehab an injury,
26:57
Speaker 9: and my doctor and physical therapist told me that taking
27:01
Speaker 9: up yoga would really help. And I at first thought, oh,
27:06
Speaker 9: everyone talks about yoga as this incredible flow-like experience, and
27:09
Speaker 9: I wasn't getting that for myself. And I just needed
27:14
Speaker 9: to develop the skills. I needed to really build up
27:18
Speaker 9: a base with my practice where I could even begin
27:20
Speaker 9: to feel flow. And so I say that as an
27:22
Speaker 9: example of not turning you off of yoga, but rather
27:26
Speaker 9: if you are starting something brand new, be patient with yourself.
27:30
Speaker 9: Give yourself a little bit of grace because Flow requires
27:34
Speaker 9: high skill. When you're initially starting, you probably don't have
27:38
Speaker 9: those skills. So a second piece of advice is find
27:41
Speaker 9: time to reprioritize something that you already love and enjoy.
27:45
Speaker 9: You know, I love to spend all my time snowboarding,
27:48
Speaker 9: but I can't do that for all sorts of reasons.
27:51
Speaker 9: But one thing I have been able to reprioritize in
27:54
Speaker 9: my own personal life is cooking. I've been able to
27:56
Speaker 9: make a little bit more time to do that regularly,
28:00
Speaker 9: and that's a way for me to find flow. If
28:03
Speaker 9: you can take passions and activities that you already have
28:05
Speaker 9: and dedicate a little bit more time to them, I
28:07
Speaker 9: think that's one of the best places to start. It
28:10
Speaker 9: doesn't mean you can't pick up new things. Of course,
28:12
Speaker 9: you can and should. But if you do try to
28:14
Speaker 9: pick up something new, be patient with yourself because it
28:17
Speaker 9: might not be a flow experience, at least initially.
28:21
Speaker 2: Do you think that the skill challenge balance is an
28:25
Speaker 2: important part of finding flow?
28:27
Speaker 10: 20,000%.
28:28
Speaker 3: So that is a yes.
28:34
Speaker 2: Diane has actually become something of a flow expert herself.
28:37
Speaker 2: She gives talks on how to help people find flow
28:40
Speaker 2: after they've lost it.
28:41
Speaker 5: When I share this, when I speak, the light bulbs
28:45
Speaker 5: go off in the room.
28:47
Speaker 3: A skill without a challenge is not going to ignite anything.
28:50
Speaker 5: A challenge without a skill is not going to ignite anything.
28:54
Speaker 3: It's the two together that activates flow.
28:58
Speaker 2: So what was your purpose when you were feeling the
29:01
Speaker 2: music as a young concertmaster? And juxtapose that with the
29:04
Speaker 2: purpose that you have now, writing your own music and
29:08
Speaker 2: having the orchestra back you up. Is the purpose the same?
29:12
Speaker 5: No, I think I was finding myself when I was young.
29:16
Speaker 5: And so when I had that moment, I was like, yes,
29:20
Speaker 5: this is me.
29:21
Speaker 3: This is me. This has been that thing I've been
29:23
Speaker 3: chasing for all these years.
29:26
Speaker 5: My purpose now, as opposed to when I was 15
29:29
Speaker 5: years old, when I was finding myself, is sharing the
29:33
Speaker 5: message and sharing the experience with people.
29:37
Speaker 3: And and if by chance I can.
29:40
Speaker 5: Help somebody to change their life in some way to
29:44
Speaker 5: have some sort of paradigm shift where they can be
29:48
Speaker 5: at the top of their game love what they do
29:50
Speaker 5: then uh that's that's 10 out of 10 purpose for me.
30:00
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people in midlife, people who
30:03
Speaker 2: are seeking or asking what's next, there's a sense that,
30:08
Speaker 2: you know, you've been in this sort of grind of obligation,
30:11
Speaker 2: like parenting and working and parenting and working, and you
30:14
Speaker 2: haven't had really time to think about these kinds of
30:17
Speaker 2: activities or hobbies or passions that might change. make you
30:21
Speaker 2: feel euphoric or feel in the flow. Even when we're
30:24
Speaker 2: not working anymore, I think that we really are still
30:30
Speaker 2: searching for meaning and momentum and a sense that our
30:33
Speaker 2: life has direction.
30:34
Speaker 9: I love this. Were you listening in on a conversation
30:39
Speaker 9: a friend and I were just having the other day?
30:41
Speaker 9: Because I swear, like, oh my gosh.
30:44
Speaker 3: Somebody hit a midlife wall?
30:47
Speaker 5: Yes.
30:48
Speaker 9: Well, we were talking about when Not too long ago,
30:52
Speaker 9: when we were a little bit younger and just getting
30:53
Speaker 9: started in our careers, it felt like it was really
30:57
Speaker 9: easy to fixate and focus on all the things we
30:59
Speaker 9: weren't doing and kind of beat ourselves up over that.
31:03
Speaker 9: It was really easy to imagine all the things that
31:07
Speaker 9: we really should be doing if we wanted to achieve
31:09
Speaker 9: this nebulous whatever, right? But fast forward a little bit
31:14
Speaker 9: to today and there's been a bit of a cognitive reframe.
31:19
Speaker 9: It's not thinking about all the things that I haven't
31:22
Speaker 9: done or that are still ahead of me that I
31:24
Speaker 9: want to do, but actually it's about making time for myself.
31:28
Speaker 9: When I focused on all the things I wasn't doing,
31:30
Speaker 9: I very infrequently focused on the things that I also
31:34
Speaker 9: should be doing, which was taking care of me, trying
31:38
Speaker 9: to take care of my health and my life and
31:41
Speaker 9: both physical and mental health. And I think that that's
31:44
Speaker 9: something that as we think about midlife and aging, is
31:48
Speaker 9: really critical for thinking about the role of flow. It's
31:52
Speaker 9: something that helps us physically. It's something that helps us mentally.
31:55
Speaker 9: It has these benefits where we are able to stay
31:57
Speaker 9: more resilient, to deal with stress a little bit better,
32:00
Speaker 9: to deal with burnout a little bit better. And so
32:02
Speaker 9: if you say to yourself, oh, I don't deserve this,
32:06
Speaker 9: that's a bit of the wrong attitude because not only one,
32:10
Speaker 9: you do deserve this, but two, by seeking flow out,
32:14
Speaker 9: is more likely that you will live a richer, more fulfilling,
32:18
Speaker 9: more satisfied and happier, resilient life.
32:23
Speaker 5: It is that same as the 15-year-old experience that I had,
32:29
Speaker 5: but it is so greatly amplified.
32:33
Speaker 2: So for Diane Allen, everything she loved about music as
32:37
Speaker 2: a child, as a young adult, is now fully expressed
32:41
Speaker 2: in what she's doing today. She has parlayed her skills
32:45
Speaker 2: and her talents with classical music in something new. You know,
32:49
Speaker 2: she returned to the thing she loved, but she uses
32:53
Speaker 2: the instrument so differently. It's giving her lift. It's giving
32:58
Speaker 2: her midlife momentum.
33:00
Speaker 5: I know that there's that ripple effect like I have
33:02
Speaker 5: with the orchestra, right?
33:04
Speaker 3: However well I did, it would ripple out throughout the orchestra.
33:08
Speaker 3: And so I'm experiencing that on a grand scale.
33:12
Speaker 5: Having a voice and being visible are things.
33:18
Speaker 3: That stop people in their tracks.
33:21
Speaker 5: And I think I've been peeling the layers of this
33:23
Speaker 5: onion for decades and it just keeps getting better.
33:29
Speaker 2: I really think that there's a lesson here for all
33:32
Speaker 2: of us. And I think the flow state can help
33:35
Speaker 2: us see it. In midlife, you don't have to completely
33:39
Speaker 2: reinvent yourself. You can go back to the things that
33:43
Speaker 2: you've been doing for decades or something you may have
33:45
Speaker 2: mastered as a kid or a young adult. And you
33:48
Speaker 2: can ask, how can I use that now? What is
33:52
Speaker 2: it that's inside of you that makes you feel alive,
33:55
Speaker 2: that brings you joy, that can make you feel blissful?
33:59
Speaker 2: And how can you use it today in a way
34:02
Speaker 2: that's different from the way you've used it in the past?
34:17
Speaker 2: Your Turn is a production of WBUR in partnership with NPR.
34:21
Speaker 2: It's hosted by me, Alison Aubrey. Our producer is Carrie Thompson.
34:26
Speaker 2: Sound design by Fred Greenhall. Project manager, Lindsay McKenna. Your
34:31
Speaker 2: Turn's showrunner is Eric Menel. Our executive producer is Ben
34:35
Speaker 2: Brock Johnson. Music in this episode, courtesy of APM and
34:39
Speaker 2: Diane Allen, composer and performer. Fahmy Farhan, a ranger. And
34:44
Speaker 2: we would love to hear from you. What kind of
34:47
Speaker 2: challenging or exciting midlife questions are you facing? You can
34:51
Speaker 2: write to us at yourturn at wbur.org. And we may
34:55
Speaker 2: put your voice or your story in an upcoming episode.
34:58
Speaker 2: And please be sure to review the show on whatever
35:00
Speaker 2: podcast app you use. Until next week, I'm Alison Aubrey.
35:05
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.
35:14
Speaker 10: Opera singer Gabriela DiLaccio always loved Mozart, Beethoven, Vivaldi. But
35:20
Speaker 10: then she discovered she didn't know the works of thousands
35:24
Speaker 10: of female composers.
35:25
Speaker 2: It's not about taking people off the list.
35:28
Speaker 3: It's putting more people on the list.
35:30
Speaker 10: Tracking down the women missing from music. That's on the
35:33
Speaker 10: TED Radio Hour podcast. Listen on the NPR app or
35:36
Speaker 10: wherever you get your podcasts.
35:39
Speaker 8: This is Terry Gross. Listen to Fresh Air for thoughtful questions.
35:44
Speaker 8: Like when I asked Steven Spielberg about porn titles. When
35:47
Speaker 8: John Waters was on our show, he said his favorite
35:49
Speaker 8: was shaving Ryan's privates. Did you know about this?
35:54
Speaker 1: Uh, no. Not until this very moment.
35:58
Speaker 8: Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get podcasts.