Finding "Flow" In Dating

I once went to the Landmark Forum. For those that aren’t familiar, it’s aimed toward helping people reach their absolute highest potential. After a weekend of 12 hour grueling days and mental breakthroughs, there’s only one thing that stuck in my mind ten years later. It was this quote:

“When you believe that everything is truly nothing, then comes the possibility of anything.” Then the speaker asked, “What possibility are you creating?”

This quote holds so much power. It’s the realization that we construct our world. Our perceptions of reality are only our perceptions; they aren’t necessarily reality itself.

When you strip away everything; your judgments, your fears, what’s holding you back from truly achieving what you want; you are essentially left with nothing but a space… a space to create something.

Powerful, eh?

I only recently remembered the quote when reading Deepak Chopra’s book Perfect Health. His book explains the concept of “Breakthrough Ideas.” The basic premise is that if you create an idea so big that normal methods can’t achieve it, then new methods must be created. It can cause major shifts in cultures and businesses.

Also powerful, eh?

These breakthrough ideas are created from people who ask the question, “What possibility am I creating?” and figure out how to get there. It has the ability to completely transform who you are and/or what you are creating.

So, I’m going to ask this question to you. “What possibility are you creating in your relationship?”

If you are reading this article, I’m assuming you want an extraordinary life, and you want an extraordinary partner with whom to share your life.

I want you to write down one sentence describing what you want. Write it and keep it somewhere where you can see it. Remove your judgements and your fears and write from the heart. It might sound like this, “I want a relationship that awakens the most dormant spiritual parts of my being.”

Also very powerful!

I know what some of you are thinking. “Yeah yeah, this is the law of attraction, I’ve heard it a hundred times. Like attracts like. I attract what I think, feel, and say. ” But I can almost guarantee you that you haven’t heard it the way I’m going to explain it in the following chapters.

Keep reading…

Imagine this scenario.

You are sitting across from a date. You are nervous, clammy, worrying about if you look okay, if you’re saying the right things, if he or she likes you. You aren’t even listening to what he’s saying, you are so worried about coming up with a witty response. The date ends. You replay every single word in your mind, examining its meaning. You have no idea if it went well, or if he’ll call.

Now let’s imagine a more attractive scenario.

You are sitting across from your date. You feel comfortable in your own skin. You know you look great. You feel the good energy being exchanged. You are attentive to the conversation, it’s pulling you in, your responses roll off your tongue. You discuss mutual interests effortlessly; everything from podcasts to urban gardening to typography. You’re so absorbed in your conversation that everything else disappears. Your sense of time is distorted. Before you know it, it’s 2am and the restaurant is empty.

This is what Steven Kotler calls flow.

“Flow is defined as an optimal state of consciousness, a state where you feel your best and perform your best. More specifically, the term refers to those moments of rapt attention and total absorption, when you get so focused on the task at hand that everything else disappears. Action and awareness merge. Your sense of self vanishes. Your sense of time distorts (either, typically, speeds up; or, occasionally, slows down). And throughout, all aspects of performance, both mental and physical, go through the roof.”

That sounds like a pretty amazing date experience, right?

This is what’s possible in your relationships.

You have the ability to enter this state of flow on your dates and with your partner on a continual basis. You have the ability to transcend the self (the “ego”), and experience an optimal state of consciousness.