[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to another episode of the So Here For It podcast. I am your host, Amy Mingin, and I am so excited today to talk to you all about the difference between flow and force. I feel like I've had this conversation over and over again with a lot of people in my community this week, some of my one on one clients, and I thought it's time peeps, it is time.
Let's talk about flow and force and how to actually marry these together because one cannot exist without the other. And it actually doesn't mean anything bad if you are forcing things, but it just makes life so much easier once you can find your flow with things. So first of all, let's figure out what is flow and what is force. Because maybe you're not really sure about what the difference is yet. So let's go into that first.
Number one, flow. Flow is when it feels like things are happening effortlessly. That it's intuitively led. [00:01:00] It's very easy energetically for you. It feels really aligned. Your nervous system isn't like shooting out any sort of triggers. It's actually you taking aligned action.
When it's force, force happens when we're literally forcing things. It feels tension filled. It feels like resistance. It's like you're lifting the heaviest weights that you've ever lifted. It's pushing the proverbial shit uphill, yeah? Whenever we're forcing something, it's usually because we have some form of limiting belief around it.
And I'll get into that a little bit later. But I want you to consider if something's been frustrating you lately, or something hasn't been working, have you been more in flow or more in force with it? And this could be relative to any aspect of your life. Let's talk about it in the context of health. If you're forcing your health, it might look like this.
You [00:02:00] wake up, your alarm goes off, and all of a sudden you're in this stress response, you jump out of bed, you don't even have time before you've flicked the kettle on or you've hit. start on your espresso machine, you've downed that double shot of coffee and then you're awake. Your body's gone into this like forceful way of waking up straight up. You whack on some really hardcore music and you've gone and pumped it out to some sort of really hardcore workout. That feels quite forceful. It's not innately wrong. It just feels forceful.
Now let's go into more of a flow version. The flow version might look like this. Very gently waking up to the natural sunlight that's coming in through your window. You're waking up really naturally at the crack of dawn. You open your eyes. You're wide awake. You say gratitudes. Thank yourself for another day here on earth. And you [00:03:00] get out of bed. You go about your morning routine in a really calm way. You have your glass of water and then you take yourself into nature and you connect with yourself. Again, doesn't make anything right or wrong.
There are just two total different ways that you could start your day. I'm giving you some really practical examples there.
So. Also in the context of health, I figured this out when I was in my early twenties, once I came off the pill. Because the pill blocks all of my natural cycles, right? And I didn't realize I was getting so many side effects from it. I put on about 10 kilos really, really quickly. I got really tender breasts. I got migraines every month. And I had depression and I didn't even know what that was. I just kept crying all the time. I thought it was just really emotional. And it just didn't, it did not align with me.
And then that's right. Anytime that I would have a drink, after about two or three drinks, I was [00:04:00] violently ill. I would vomit really, really easily. I was very stressed, would stress out about everything. So I see taking the pill, this is my version of the truth, I don't think that women should be on the pill.
I think that there are so many other ways that we can be in touch with our cycles. Another comment for another day, but for me personally, as soon as I came off the pill and I got in touch with my natural cycles, all of a sudden I found flow. All of a sudden I was journaling. I started doing yoga. I found my own way of having an antidepressant.
All of a sudden I was more internally motivated. I was eating better. I was exercising more because prior to that, I wasn't even really exercising. So there was no motivation while I was on the pill. I still have to say that the pill wasn't the worst thing in the world for me. It did prevent pregnancy and that's what I was on it for.
But at the same time, there were so many other side effects. So I had to find another way. And as soon as I started to figure out my natural energy cycles, my natural creativity cycles, I was like, there's something in [00:05:00] this. Now that's how this flows into our flow state.
So you think about all the different ways that make you feel really great in your day, and they are probably your flow activities.
I'm going to get you to write things down if you are at home and you're able to write things down, because this will be a really good reminder for you to be able to apply it every single day. If you want more flow in your life, it is a practice. Otherwise, what our natural state to go into is this more resistant state.
It's just so natural for our nervous system to go back to ways that it's always done things. For some reason, humans are wired more towards force than they are toward flow, which Is wild. And it baffles me, but again, said this in previous podcast episodes, our nervous system is wired for survival, not for happiness. And flow state tends toward happiness and calm, and force tends towards the resistance, the negativity, the tension, right?
So it's really, really important that if you want to get into a [00:06:00] flow state more often that you need to start finding ways that you're feeling more intentionally in alignment, you're finding ways so that you can feel more intentionally inspired each day.
Now if you haven't yet figured it out, that is totally okay. There is plenty of time for you to find out all about these things inside your life. Even if you are somebody who has never been in touch with their natural cycles, and let's say you've had a hysterectomy or you're post menopausal, it's never too late.
You can still figure out when your natural cycles are, when your natural peaks in energy are, you can figure it out in relationship to the moon. Or you just do it in relationship to noting down in your calendar when you feel really good and when you feel really energetic. Notice when you are feeling good.
This is a really, really great practice because it goes beyond gratitude. It brings you into the here and now. The here and now molecule is serotonin. That naturally is [00:07:00] what? An antidepressant. Can you see how all of these things start to fit together?
I find it so fascinating how neurotransmitters, how our body, our body is merely a beautiful big receptor in multiple different ways. Now, the more in flow we are, the more receptive we are, the more we can receive. Once we receive, then we're happy to give, but the problem is when we're in force, we're forcing ourselves to give, which isn't such a bad thing in the beginning. If you're forcing something, because you know, you need to get momentum going. It's totally okay. Most people begin there. But it's more so like, how do you dance between it? It's like, if you're over here and you're forcing, it is a recipe for tension. It's a recipe for anger. It is a recipe for having resentment. And so if you're starting to feel that you're like, cool, how do I find more flow?
Is it possible for me to release tension and still have momentum? That's what flow is. Release the tension, surrender to the outcome. Let yourself go through the [00:08:00] process. Much easier said than done because a lot of people still have a lot of emotional entanglement inside of whatever they're going through inside the process.
And this is why we have to bring these flow activities into our day. This is why I move my body every single morning, without fail. It doesn't matter if it is literally five minutes in child's pose, it is still something. Something is better than nothing. Something always takes you forward as opposed to doing nothing.
So if you're somebody who starts their day by looking at their phone, please stop doing that. Wake up, have a glass of water and start to find what flow activities help you to feel more inspired and take more aligned action in your life.
You'll know when you're more in flow because you'll be more calm. You'll be more motivated. You will be able to take action and complete tasks so much more easily. And something here that I really love helping awaken in people is when you're in flow, you're far more intuitive. So think about it in the way of you're receptive, [00:09:00] so you can bring in more.
For me, I'm very visual and I've talked about it in my episode about being clairvoyant. I want you to have a think about the way that you access your intuition. Some people will have clear knowing. Some people have clear feeling. Some people have clear hearing. Some people have clear seeing. Figure it out and start to practice it every single day, because guess what? The more you're in flow, the more you're trusting yourself, the more you're your authentic self, the more you trust the process, the easier life becomes.
It's like you become the main character. And I've talked about this before, become the main character of your journey. The more calm you can be, the more you can notice. And so therefore you can take the aligned action rather than feeling like you're stressed about it and you have to, you can switch that around, which is one of the most important mindset shifts ever, and say, I get to. Instead of viewing every single thing as a challenge and something you have to overcome, see it as an opportunity. [00:10:00] Cause if you're not seeing something as an opportunity, then what is it to you? What is the point of any of it? And I know that so many people have talked to me about like, Oh, I just get to this point where I go, what is the point?
The point is for you to become who you really are. And if you're not experiencing flow, then there's no way you can become who you really are because our natural state is flow. Our natural state is for us to be cool and calm and loving and playful and experiential. It is not natural to be in force and resistance and feeling negative feelings all of the time.
That is not normal. It is common. Let's leave that over there. It is not normal. It is common. So I want you to notice if you're self doubting, if you feel like the progress is too slow, if you feel like you've got fear of failure. There's no such thing. The only way is your way, and you are here to learn your way. So if you haven't yet learned it, then keep going. [00:11:00] Simple as that. Simple as that.
So I want you to also ask yourself the question. Whenever something comes up for you, you can go, all right, well I can do this in the way of force or flow. So start with that. Am I in force? Am I in flow? Am I calm? Am I tense?
Am I being the person who I really want to be and am I my authentic self or am I kind of masking myself and trying to be who everyone else wants me to be? Am I actually following my goals and aligned path or am I following somebody else's? You can start to ask yourself these questions and then start to take aligned action because here's where the practical aspects start to come in.
If you're in flow, you start to take inspired action every single day. And what is inspired action? It's where you get the best ideas ever. It's where you can take action and it feels effortless. It's where you know for sure that you can put that social media [00:12:00] post out there and you know, for sure that somebody is going to reach out to you.
You can email that person and they're going to say yes. You can reach out to someone or even just think of them and they're going to reach out to you. So it's really, really important that you start to notice that aligned and intentional energy toward your action every single day. Because what happens on the other side of that is more flow. More flow gives more flow.
As opposed to when you hit the resistance, you're okay, well what am I feeling resistance to? And this will be one of the biggest things that you ever do inside your life, is if you figure out what you're resistant to, then you move through to the next level. If you find the resistance, you calm yourself down, release the tension around it, it is only natural that you receive the next level. Meaning, if you are in business, and you are going for a new income goal or a new amount of people, clients who you're seeing in the [00:13:00] week or something like that. If you're currently at say eight and you want 10, let's give that as an example.
You release all of the resistance that you have toward the 10. So what does the 10 mean to you? Oh, it means that I'm going to have to work for two more hours per week. Am I okay with that? Release the resistance. Oh, it means that I'm going to have that much more money in my account. Am I okay with that? Release the resistance. It means that fill in the blank, right? So you got to figure out all of this self talk and figure out where you're being resistant to something, because that is always the way through. Find your resistance, relax it, find your resistance, surrender. And then that's going to be where you find your flow point.
So once you're feeling more calm, you'll be able to be more in tune. You'll be more intuitive and you'll know exactly what the next step is. You don't need to keep outsourcing everything to everybody else. You'll know what your next step is. And [00:14:00] sometimes you might just ask your mentor or you might ask your very trusted community.
Hey guys, I'm thinking about this. Give me your external feedback, already having your own answer. That's the most important thing. You already have your own energy in place. You already have your authentic self and it is absolutely totally cool to bounce ideas of people who you trust and who you feel are on a similar path to you and a similar wavelength.
Like it's really, really important that the frequency that you speak at is really similar to the people who you spend the most time with. So for example, we're coming into Christmas this time of year, a lot of people will try and make small talk. Oh, how's your little business going? It's not a little business. Thanks. Have you ever had that? I definitely have, and it can feel really triggering. So instead of that, you can have a something to say so that you can be more responsive as opposed to reactive, flow versus force.
What [00:15:00] would my response be? If somebody said little business, I'd go, Oh, it's actually going really well. It's growing, serving so many people. I'm really, really excited about where I'm headed in the new year because I'm planning on getting into the USA with Catalyst. So excited about that. And they might be like, Oh, what's Catalyst. And I can talk about Catalyst. So just have something ready to go. You know what I mean? Like, don't let the thing that somebody doesn't understand, bring you down because all it merely is doing is vibrating at a different frequency. So you help them raise to your frequency. Not that that's your responsibility, but you can, you can see how the conversation goes, right?
As opposed to, let's go into the context of health here, let's see, a lot of people are very, very forceful with their health, and for good reason. I mean, there is something around the word discipline that people think that it has to be hard, has to be challenging, have to do the hard thing to get the results, right?
And it's like, actually, things can be super easy with health. [00:16:00] It doesn't have to be super rigid and it doesn't have to be tension filled and it doesn't have to be hard every single workout or every single meal. You can keep it simple and still get fantastic results. So I want you to figure out, like, are you doing the exercise at the gym or going for the run because you're punishing yourself because you had the cookie?
Or are you making yourself take that disgusting greens drink because you think you need to detox because you had two glasses of wine last night that you really know that you shouldn't have had, but you did anyway? You know, I'm talking to you. There's no right way. This is the, this is what I'm trying to say. Like it is a dance, but I want you to actually own your authentic self. And if you're going to have the wine, then have the wine, but also know that if it's a slight force for your body, don't go punish it each day. If you're going to do the thing, do the thing. Thoroughly enjoy it. Stop punishing yourself for decisions that you make knowingly.[00:17:00]
You can look back and learn from them 100%. But I want you to find flow anywhere where you're noticing resistance. It's really, really important lesson that you can learn throughout life in pretty much every single aspect. Now I want you to also consider any time that you're making judgment on yourself. Because it happens.
In the context of health, it happens. In the context of business, it happens. In the context of relationships, money, it happens. People make judgments. So instead of making the judgment on yourself, I want you to get curious. So you can go, Oh, that's curious. And you can get curious with yourself. I wonder why I'm being reactive to that particular comment when she said it was a small business.
Why am I so reactive to that? Oh, because it felt like her perception of me was small. Oh, that's what it was. And that reminded me of that time when somebody told me not to be so loud, so big, so [00:18:00] bold, have so many opinions. But you know what those opinions got me? Exactly to where I am right now. And maybe they are bold and maybe they are too much for some people, but they're not too much for the right people.
So I want you to remain your authentic self. I want you to be curious with yourself. And anytime that the force comes up, notice the judgment. You can bring this self awareness in, this self compassion in, and you can move forward because you get to, you don't have to, you get to. It's all part of the human experience.
So what I want you to have a think about as well, experiences are opportunities. See it as experience and opportunity over a challenge. Something in us loves a challenge, right? We love an underdog, but also it's actually really, really important to experience your life, learn from it. There's going to be times where it feels hard.
There are going to be times where it feels super easy and joyful and you get to have all of it. There [00:19:00] is a full spectrum of emotions that we get to experience as humans. So don't push them away. Be with the experience, be with the emotion, knowing full well that you've got through every other thing so far in your life, you're going to get through this one.
Have the positivity and the faith that it's all working out for you, because that keeps you in a flow state. I also want to say this, here's another big caveat. The scientists that have studied flow, so flow state, say that it lasts for about 90 minutes. This is in a work sense. Lasts for about 90 minutes, and we usually have two a day and they say that it actually uses up a lot of energy, but I would say it uses a lot of energy if you're a hyper focused style person. I actually believe that you can be in flow all the time if you choose to. And then there's going to be momentary times of force. There's going to be momentary times of noticing that you're tense. And then it's up to us to go, Oh, okay. I'm noticing the tension and I'm going to go be with that for a minute, feel the feelings, let the emotions move [00:20:00] through, express myself, say whatever I need to say, do whatever I need to do, and then find my flow again.
Because again, it's an opportunity for learning. It's an opportunity for experience. And nothing's off the table. Like let yourself experience the risk of finding out. There's something very exciting about that. So last and not least, I want you to take this away. That flow versus force is kind of like getting freedom through discipline.
So I want you to think about where can you bring more discipline into your life in an aligned way. It acts like the scaffolding of a house. We need the scaffolding there to then build the walls, to have some structure, but us as the human gets to open up all the doors and move in and around and in and out whenever we wish.
So we have the structure, then we bring the freedom. The freedom and the structure bring some form of [00:21:00] safety, but also an element of risk, but also an element of excitement and joy and everything else that comes with those experiences. Find your freedom through discipline, because if you're only looking for freedom and you're not disciplined enough to hold the structure. Then the freedom isn't real. Then it just ends up being chaotic. So find what is going to keep you structured and feeling safe and feeling certain in some aspects and allow yourself to grow through that.
I think that this is a really beautiful topic and I've got so much more to say, but I'm going to bring us to the end of this episode. I want to make sure that you know how to connect with me. I have a website, amymingin.com. I'm available to chat on Instagram. Please know that my DM's are open. So reach out to me if you'd love to have a chat. And I also have another, @catalystmindbody. So I've got the Amy Mingin account, which is my personal [00:22:00] brand.
I've also got catalystmindbody, which is more where I share all of my health info. So I'm going to pop those links below into the show notes. Would love a follow if you're not already following me and please share this with somebody who really, really, really would get something out of it. This sort of info needs to land in the ears of every single female entrepreneur.
That is the goal. Let's help more people grow this year. Thank you so much for joining me and I'll see you on the next episode.
