Being FREE: Flow/Relax/Effortless Effort

The secret to living a Low Density Lifestyle is becoming FREE. In an earlier post, I explained what the acronym FREE means. It stands for Flow, Relax, Effortless Effort.

Because it is a very important concept, I want to discuss FREE a little further at length.

The Flow state is known to athletes as being “in the zone.”  To an athlete, this is where everything just seems to go their way. And athletes will be the first to tell you that when they are in the flow state, they perform at higher levels.

Shawn Phillips, the well-known athlete, bodybuilder and author of Strength for Life, had this to say about the subject:

From the beginning, what I was connecting with in the gym was a universal energy source. I would just feel it flowing. Even when I was twenty years old, I called the gym my church. When I was there, it wasn’t about being social; it was about doing my practice. I was in it. I was in the zone.

Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist, said,  “Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains.” In essence, this is what Flow is about. You become a circuit of energy, flowing infinitely, much like an unimpeded electrical circuit in which the electricity freely courses throughout.

Relax is something that doesn’t always come easy for many people. Sure, everybody knows how to veg out. But do you know how to profoundly relax, to tap into the stillness within and the center of your being?

To find that calmness and stillness within, you can do any number of things or techniques.  These can be meditation, prayer, walking in nature, speaking silently, listening to quiet engaging music, yoga, along with many other mind-body techniques.

A recent scientific study even found that relaxation techniques can beneficially affect your genes.

Relaxation is about finding your peace within the turmoil and hubbub of everyday life.  Some of you may do workshops or go to retreats or go on vacations to help find that inner quiet. And that is a good thing. But the trick is to embed that knowledge into your body and mind and integrate that understanding into your daily routine, so that everywhere you go, wherever you are, you are immersed in your stillness.

When you are acting with Effortless Effort, you can labor for hours on end, at times functioning on little sleep, and yet feel full of energy and life. You are firing on all cylinders, and the universe seems like a giant playground. You love what you do and you do what you love.

Interestingly enough, there are times when stress has a positive connotation. There is a term, eustress, which is the positive aspect of stress. In this case, a person is very busy, doing many things, but they are thriving in the midst of it, and loving how productive they are. A person in this situation is in full Effortless Effort mode. To an observer, it would seem as if this person is pushing themselves far too much and burning themselves out. But to the person immersed in Effortless Effort, they are thriving because they are firing on all cylinders and feeling alive, vibrant and awake.

And so, this is what being FREE is all about. Remember the formula? It’s LDL = FREE.  Keep that in mind–it will help you to live a Low Density Lifestyle.

Stress: A Major Impediment to a Low Density Lifestyle

Stress is a major impediment to living a Low Density Lifestyle. It will stop your ability to be in the flow and find your center of calm and stillness.

Stress can negatively impact your health, well-being, happiness, and ability to live a productive and successful life. Stress will keep you living a High Density Lifestyle.

One of the things about stress is that for a lot of people, because they’re not in touch with how they feel, they aren’t even aware that they are stressed out.

And so, with that in mind, I’d like to offer you some helpful advice to recognize some of the signs of when you are over the edge with too much stress:

1. You get sick often. Stress can depress the immune system, making you more susceptible to various upper respiratory ailments.

2. You have digestive problems. One of the places that stress is felt in the body is in the digestive tract. You may have trouble digesting food, you may get stomach pain, you may have acid reflux, or you may have irritable bowel sydrome.

3. You suffer from pain. It could be back pain, joint pain, or even headaches.

4. You easily get anxious. Stress can affect the nervous system and make you very wired, so that things can easily set you off and cause your heart to race, your chest to become tight, and your breathing to become shallow.

5. You are easily angered. Stress will cause you to have a short fuse and to unload on people, even loved ones, often times for reasons quite trivial.

6. You can’t sleep. You go to sleep, but your mind is still racing, still thinking about everything. Or you go to sleep, but then you wake up, and can’t fall back asleep.

7. You act erratically. You do things impulsively, or you do things that you normally wouldn’t do.

8. You are drinking or using recreational drugs a lot. You need a way to unwind, and so you turn to drinking or drugging as an outlet to help you release all that pent up energy.

9. You are using pharmaceutical drugs to enhance/stabilize your mood. Stress can negatively impact your mood, attitude and emotional health, and so if you are not aware of how stressed out you are, you will be turning to prescription drugs to help you.

10. You lack focus and clarity. You forget things easily, and can’t think clearly. You also can’t focus on any one thing and mentally flit around.

I strongly suggest using the above 10 signs to help you manage your stress. Your life will improve greatly for doing so.

Feelin’ the Low Density Lifestyle

Ok, I’ve been telling you about the Low Density Lifestyle, and you may be getting it, or maybe you’re not. But today I’m going to tell you about it in a different way, through the power of images and music.
So sit back, click play and enjoy:

There are a lot of themes that the Low Density Lifestyle covers, and the video covers some of them. These themes include: flow, relaxation, effortless effort, creativity, imagination, genius, health and wellness, movement and exercise, longevity, spirituality, enlightenment, meditation, quantum mechanics, consciousness, stillness, happiness, peak performance, productivity, success and a lot more. So stay tuned as we continue to delve further…

Ten Signs That You’re Living a High Density Lifestyle

How do you know if you’re living a High Density Lifestyle?  Here are ten signs that will tell you if you are.  Ok, I’m having a little fun with it, but you’ll get the point when you go through it.

1. That Mother and her 3-year old just don’t seem to walk fast enough through the
crosswalk for you!
2. You begin to think that there is a conspiracy out there to make you late for work every single morning!
3. You’re starting a petition to replace food, water and air as our basic needs with an extra large coffee with triple cream and triple sugar.
4. When you leave the driveway in the morning it looks like a chase scene from your favorite police show.
5. The space around your lounge chair at your kid’s soccer, hockey or baseball games look like the desk at your office.
6. You pray for red lights because you figure that waiting at the light is a great time to get some business done.
7. You find sitting for anywhere beyond five minutes is a great time to get into REM state.
8. You’ve developed your own system of increasing muscle tone in your neck and shoulders without the benefits of working out!
9. You have discovered that ten minutes a day of crying is a new way of replacing meditation to release stress.
10. Whenever your heart starts beating fast you get excited because you’re reminded of your favorite disco tune.

Ok, so how did you fare?  Are you leading a High Density Lifestyle?

To achieve a Low Density Lifestyle might at first take work, but it is work that will pay off in tremendous dividends. Attaining this state is not hard, although for many of you there are countless roadblocks, most of which are self-inflicted.

But when you arrive at a Low Density Lifestyle you know it, because suddenly you begin to feel that everything flows and all tasks are done effortlessly. In this situation, the body and mind are in such resonance that you feel like you are “in the zone.”

The Low Density Lifestyle: The Secret to Becoming FREE

To live a Low Density Lifestyle, all you have to do is become FREE.  In this case, FREE is an acronym that stands for:

Flow

Relax

Effortless Effort

Let’s break that down some – I’ll explain what I mean:

Flow: Flow is the state of feeling fully in synch and in harmony with the universal flow that permeates throughout. You feel like you are in the zone at these times. The author and creativity researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi defines flow as:

” ‘Total control’ of one’s own mind is in fact too strong an expression to describe accurately what happens when one is in flow. The point is not that one can always do what one wants, but rather that the possibility of making things happen as one wishes is present in a way that seldom occurs in ‘real’ life.’ ”

Relax: Relax means finding the calmness and stillness within. When this happens, you can find your center and your balance. You can also find peace, because you are able to shut out all the static and noise that circulates all over the place.

There is a Spanish saying, “Cuán hermoso es de no hacer nada, y entonces descansar después.” This wise traditional proverb translates as, “How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then to rest afterward.”

And yet, so many of us are like a chicken without a head, running around here, there and everywhere, with a frantic energy. One of the big problems of modern day society is that so many people are burning their  candle out at both ends. The Chinese philosophers would say that people are burning out their yin, their nourishing aspect.

Effortless Effort: Effortless Effort is something the ancient Chinese philosophers called wu wei. The state of effortless effort describes a condition in which you are busy with effort, yet it seems effortless, as if the world seems to be working for you. You feel calm yet alert, focused yet receptive, drawing force from the storm while standing in its eye, acutely using all your senses. Like a marathoner who feels pulled forward, you accomplish the most with a minimum of energy. In this state hard work does not feel like work at all.

And so,  when you practice these essential characteristics—flow, relax and effortless effort—you promote a Low Density Lifestyle for yourself. An easy way to make these a part of your life is to commit to memory the simple formula: LDL = FREE.  That prescription stands for Low Density Lifestyle = Flow/Relax/Effortless Effort.

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