Beyond
Walking

By Ronda Gates, MS

Ronda Gates, MS, is a pharmacy grad who traded her white coat for a pair of athletic shoes and never looked back. Her health promotion business, LIFESTYLES, provides motivational speaking, program development, and fitness assessment services to support people making a lifestyle change. She has developed health promotion programs for many organizations nationwide.
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An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.

— Henry David
Thoreau

Go with the Flow*

My guess is that most Walk About readers have busy lives — operating on all cylinders, multitasking at home and work and, sometimes, strung out by all they have to do. My client, Ceci, is no exception. After a 15-year whirl in the high-paying corporate world, she accumulated a small nest egg. She believed her savings would give her the leverage to follow her passion and turn her hobby as an award-winning amateur photographer into a career. In addition to giving her more time with her aging wheelchair-bound mother, her more flexible schedule would allow her to train for the Portland marathon. She hoped to run with her siblings who are veterans of three marathons. Ceci’s training went well. As her walking endurance and speed increased she dropped 40 pounds in 6 months. Her mother watched her happy three children cross the finish line hand-in-hand.

Sadly, Ceci’s career did not generate the income she needed. Reluctantly, she accepted several consulting opportunities and, more quickly than she expected, she once again faced balancing a well-paying career with her passions — family, fitness, and photography. Soon the consulting took precedence, and months of training — and the weight loss and good health feelings that came with it — were reversed. “There aren’t enough hours in the day. I need help getting my healthy fitness-oriented lifestyle back on track,” Ceci complained unhappily. “Just tell me what to do.”
Believing a writing exercise makes our behaviors real and sets the stage for change, I urged Ceci to create two daily calendars — one that described how she spent her day now and one that captured that day she now described as “the happy time.” With the former she was to log, as accurately as possible, every call she made and received, every interruption, and every errand that disrupted her day. My goal was to support an evaluation of her activities so she could identify the barriers that kept her current day jam-packed and prevented her from living the healthier life she once enjoyed.

It soon became apparent why Ceci was overwhelmed. Although she was energized by the ongoing changes and juggling of priorities that were inherent in working with several clients, her penchant for controlling her environment and seeking closure in every interaction was her undoing. She admitted she was often angry and frustrated — emotions she attributed to other’s behaviors. I described her day as similar to living in permanent whitewater. She had the choice to be the battered log that gets jammed into every boulder or the “go-with-the-flow” log that continues downstream and adjusts to the changing forces of nature. Ceci needed to practice behaviors that allowed her to “go with the flow.”

Successful athletes understand the “go with the flow” concept. At the same time they describe the pressure required to train for an event. They can recall that first moment when everything seemed to fall into place and they felt “at one” with the world around them. Finding this mental place supported the focus that allowed them to make more productive use of their energy and contribute to their success. Ceci’s eyes brightened as I shared the concept. “I remember that feeling. It was an ‘aha’ moment the first time I experienced it. Admittedly, my happiest days were when I could let go and watch everything fall into place.”

Psychologist Abraham Maslow, who studied healthy people, urged us to a life of self-actualization — a life “in the flow.” His work supported that in addition to basic needs, esteem and self-esteem, it was the peak experiences, which people appreciated as the most wonderful times of their lives, that contributed significantly to helping them feel more in command of their day.

The Institute of HeartMath (www.heartmath.org), a research center dedicated to the study of the heart and the physiology of emotions is, now quantifying the results of what Maslow asked his subjects to think about — the more wonderful experiences of their lives. HeartMath principles encourage the practice of thought-based stress management techniques that calm the rhythm of the heart. This mindful focus on pleasant experiences and moments we appreciate can provide calming biofeedback to our brain and increase energy levels, mental clarity, and a wide range of health benefits.

So, although Ceci was looking for a nutrition and exercise strategy to return her to health, I urged her to, instead, have a “change of heart.” Ceci, decided to “go with the flow” when it came to my advice. Weeks later her life was shifting in a positive way. The mini-breaks she’d built into her day resulted in anger management and more efficient use of her time. This in turn gave her the time to rebuild her fitness program and to see the “light at the end of the tunnel” — giving her mother the pleasure of watching her children crossing another finish line — in synch.

Go with Your Flow
People tend to be happiest when they are so absorbed in an activity that they think of nothing else. What is your flow activity? What activity do you get lost in and lose track of time, forget, or get completely absorbed by? Take time and make a list of those activities that get you into the flow. Then take some time regularly to do them.

*Flow is a “continual change of place among the constituent particles” — Merriam-Webster.