Duality of the Flow State

George
2 min readSep 14, 2019

The single-task focus is glorified. Everywhere I look. Guy: “ All my success comes from getting into the zone and working hard!”

Flow state means full immersion in a certain task or activity. Often it’s mentioned in sports. “When in the zone, he can’t be stopped”.

But we need to consider where the attention lies. Sure, it can be directed within. It can be directed towards the surroundings as well.

Can one be in the flow whilst constantly being distracted?

Let’s use a concept I first heard from David Deida. Male and female energy. Then, the flow state most often referenced, would be the male flow state.

For those of you not familiar. This does not mean men and women. Both are said to possess both energies, usually leaning towards one or the other.

The male state of flow (MSoF) has to make an outcome happen by itself. Be the driving force. It ignores as much as possible in order to put maximum energy towards a specific thing.

What would be the female state of flow (FSoF) then?

Pretty much the opposite, I’d say. While MSoF ignores everything, FSoF sees and feels everything. Which leaves less energy for action (more on such trade-off mechanisms: Slow down to Speed up)

To still have an effect on the outcome, FSoF engages differently. Instead of opposing a force with equal force, it just redirects the MSoF slightly.

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