How Planning keeps you out of the Flow

From Return to Essence: How to be in the Flow and Fulfill Your Life’s Purpose by www.ginalake.com

The egoic mind has difficulty seeing the flow in events because it is usually too busy planning for some future event or ruminating about the past. The need to do something arises out of the flow and the ego takes it on as its personal mission. Using the past as a guide and other information it has gathered for how it will proceed, it creates a plan for action. It decides exactly how and when it will do it, not realizing that the flow already has a plan. The ego assumes a plan is needed and that providing it is its job.

Exercise:  Noticing the Mind’s tendency to Make Lists

Making lists is one of the egoic mind’s favorite activities. It is one of the primary ways it manages reality. It is not only part of planning any future event, but also part of planning daily activities. Notice how often during the day your mind recites its list for what it has planned for the day. It even lists the steps necessary to complete each activity. During the day, if often evaluates its progress in accomplishing what it set out to do. It lists what it did and what it has left to do, how it went, and its concerns about how the rest will go and if everything will get done.

Notice how much this consumes your thoughts. Moreover, notice how this list-making creates a hurry-up mentality, one in which the sole objective is to get something done to an arbitrary schedule, sometimes at the expense of other values, especially enjoyment.
The egoic mind’s drumbeat is “Hurry up and get it done!” This tendency to name and rename things you need to do in the future make it seem like there is never enough time.
It leaves you feeling stressed out, overwhelmed, and inadequate.

This list-making and hurry-up mentality saps the joy out of life because while you are doing it, you are not present to what you are doing, and you are missing out on the experience of essence in that moment. It seems like this is the way to get things done, but there is another way: just listen and respond. Discover how beautifullly essence brings about life.

The ego doesn't perceive that anything worthwhile is coming out of the flow. It discounts or disregards many of the insights, solutions, and urges to act that arise from essence. It assumes that it is the only player here, and it convinces you of this too.

It even seems this way because the flow’s timing is not what the ego would like. The flow has its own timing, which is not revealed before it happens. The ego assumes it needs to take control of life because it often seems like nothing is happening, and it is very unhappy with that. Almost anything seems better than that. It is impatient with life as it is.

The flow has a plan, which unlike the egoic mind’s, will bring you the life you are meant for, but you don’t know what the plan is until it is time for you to know. The good news is that you don’t need to know before you do. The egoic mind wants to, of course, because knowing helps it feels safe, but you don’t really need a plan. You just need to wait for the next step to be revealed. There is nothing you need to figure out, although the egoic mind will not be convinced of this. Your job is just to give your attention to what is and allow the flow to show you what it wants next from you.

When you are in the flow, you are a responsive instrument of essence. You respond to the urges, inspiration, and knowing that come out of the flow. For this, you need minimal thinking. Far more important than thinking is listening because it puts you in a receptive state. Listening brings you into the flow, while thinking takes you out of it.

Being in the flow does not feel passive, however, but alive, exciting, responsive, and active. You enthusiastically move through your life, doing many of the same things you always have done, but with more joy and certainly more fulfillment. When you are in touch with essence, any activity is joyful. You do what is necessary to sustain yourself in the world, but you don’t waste your energy on activities that aren't fulfilling.

When you are in the flow, your activities bring joy not only because you are present to them, but because they are aligned with essence and your life plan, and therefore intrinsically rewarding. Some of these activities might be considered by others to be ordinary or uninteresting, but because they are aligned with your life’s purpose, they are rewarding and joyful to you. That is what it is like to be in the flow.

You already know what it is like to be out of the flow. Rather than being an instrument of essence, you are divorced from it and usually at war with it. Being out  
of the flow is effortful, difficult, and unpleasant. Nothing is ever good enough, and potentially wonderful moments are often tarnished with judgment, comparisons, discontent, fear, or depression. When you are out of the flow, you get things done, by they don’t bring much satisfaction or joy, both because you are not present to them and because the are not intrinsically satisfying. If what you are doing doesn't fit your plan, it won’t satisfy you even if it would satisfy someone else.

You cannot be fulfilled by someone else’s life purpose; you can only be fulfilled by yours.  You won’t find out what your life purpose is by listening to the egoic mind because it doesn’t know. Only by paying attention to what is coming out of the flow and letting that lead you through your life will you fulfill your life’s purpose. The egoic mind will lead you if you let it, but you can trust the flow to unfold your life more perfectly that you ever imagined. However, you won’t know this until you give it that opportunity by paying attention to it.