About

From Freedom to Flow

When I was a child, I wanted an alternative life. I didn’t want to conform or play by the rules, so I figured my best career option would be to join the circus.  Pretty soon I realised what I really wanted was freedom (without the gymnastics and the lion taming).

When I was an adolescent, I dreamed of being an artist, so I flirted with a bohemian identity. Again, I realised that what I really wanted was creativity (without the suffering and starving in a garret).

When I became an adult my first real job was road manager for a rock & roll band. The hours were long and the problems at times insurmountable, yet every day via a mixture of synchronicity and magic, the doors opened on time and the show went on.

I now had three core values – freedom, creativity, and flow (aka magic).

Then it was time to “settle down”. This phrase always struck me as interesting. If different substances “settle” after being shaken together, they separate. When we settle, we often separate our creative spirit from our rational mind. We start living in our heads. We make safe, repetitive choices rather than inspired, imaginative ones.

My settling down coincided with a career in marketing and advertising. There was a lot of creativity in marketing, but it was the type of independent creativity made popular by Madmen. It belonged in a separate department and had “lone genius” on its business card.

During my time in the corporate world, I had a few revelations. Creativity isn’t a skill (though it can be developed with discipline) it’s the essence of who we are. When we have a high need for certainty and control, we suppress our creativity and rely on our intellect to make decisions. True creativity is our capacity to make choices without fear of consequence.

I became a coach. Lack of energy, anxiety, overwhelm and fear are rife in the workplace, and I knew I could help with that.

Just like business and politics, the coaching world is loosely divided into two camps. One is “solutions” based – all about goal setting, time management, and productivity hacks. The other is “wellness” based – self-care, empathy, mindfulness, and feeling your feelings. Kick-ass or kind seem to be the two options.

These may be successful strategies for individuals but are less successful with teams. When groups of people gather to work on a project, repressed emotions of fear, or anger arise in the space between them, looking for a fault line. On the up-side, repressed life force energy and creative power also have an opportunity to emerge.

This led me to Flow.

A lot is written these days about Flow states or “being in the zone”. The approach is often masculine – achieving super productivity by getting more done in less time, rather than feminine – making collaborative, creative choices, helped by the magic of synchronicity.

When we remove the blocks created by our separate agendas and come together with one objective, work becomes a co-creative dance than a linear climb of the ladder.

And then there are the side effects – increased confidence, humour, intuition, and the feeling of freedom as the cage door opens and we are reunited with the power of our creative spirit.

So it turned out I wanted the lion taming after all!