I type the word "flow" into google translate, but can't find a good translation in Swedish. Flow, river, outflow... Well, for me the word means more to find a pace, a content, a level of energy that gives me a feeling of balance and well-being. Every day I aim to be one with that feeling. Some days everything just flows and it feels so damn good, these days I don't even have to think about whether I should do anything different, these days I just flow with it. I don't have to look for it, because the feeling is there all the time. I'm in balance. I'm experiencing everyday flow in the hamster wheel.
Then there are days when that feeling doesn't occur at all. I'm rushing to get breakfast ready for all the kids, the porridge ends up on the floor, the dishwasher hasn't cleaned and I'm left hand-washing all the food boxes, someone complains about the contents, someone wants help getting dressed, someone else tells a funny story and I don't get the point. On my way out the door I realize the little one has a dirty diaper that needs changing. The big ones are stomping around, wanting to get to school. I hear a distant school bell ring the first time.
Somehow we still arrive on time and the children wave goodbye happily. I pack the car to take the youngest to daycare and to get to the office myself. Get stuck in traffic. There's never traffic in the direction I usually drive. But today there is. The littlest one gets tired of sitting in the car, throws all the toys on the floor and starts screaming instead. I try to breathe and think that we will be there soon.
Somehow, we make it in time. We say hello to the teachers at exactly 9 o'clock. I wave goodbye to kid #3 and it's finally time to taste the tea I prepared 1.5 hours ago. I'm used to drinking cold tea these days. The tea tastes good and I am waiting for the computer to slowly but surely wake up to a new day. The office is quiet, but my pulse is way too high. What if I'd got up 10 minutes earlier, or if my husband hadn't been away, I probably wouldn't have had to rush and things might have gone a bit better, I think as I sum up the first part of my day.
I usually think about how everything flows (or rather how everything doesn't flow) when I'm sitting on El Camino Real on my way to the gym with O in the afternoons. For those of you who don't know El Camino Real, I can tell you that it is a road with many lanes, though not a highway, but a road with red lights at every intersection. To get to the gym we need to pass 15 red lights. Usually there is a red light in 13 of them. Usually someone has pushed the button so they can cross the road too, then of course it takes longer for us in the car to get the green light. On a day with a reasonable flow of red lights the journey takes 16 minutes one way, on other days maybe 23 minutes. It sounds like it's not that big a difference in time, but the feeling I get behind the wheel when I'm running a red light is the big difference. We usually cheer when we get a green light at the last red light. The joy spreads through the car. And everyone sings along to "Our Little Brother" coming out of the speakers.
I firmly believe that if you find the balance (the flow) within you, you can also find balance around you (red lights are the exception) and in your everyday life. You also share your energy, consciously or unconsciously, with the people and environment around you. I think everyone can agree that people we meet or associate with affect us in different ways. Some people make us nervous, stressed or sad, while others make us happy and cheerful. You affect your environment the same way they affect yours. How do you want to influence your environment?
What do you do to feel balance within yourself? Do you also strive to find everyday flow in your hamster wheel?