When the decision is 100% up to you, what do you choose to do? For me, this often results in a freeze. It’s like my whole inside says, nope – someone else decide, please.
Yet, when I have a camera in hand, when I’m editing a book, when I’m coloring, I can choose things from a relaxed and intuitive state. The indecision disappears, as my muscle-memory takes control, and I see feelingly – following the tingling of curiosity, deciding what to capture, what to write, what to color so easily.
What is this feeling, this sense of complete inner peace, that makes it easy to just know what to do next, to know what truly feels best?
In my study of productivity, motivation, habits change, of trading, of mindset and meditation, and all sorts of “personal-growth-self-care-self-love-upleveling-myself” things, I’ve found this feeling is a commonly touched on subject. It’s described with a variety of words, from The Zone for traders and athletes to the Creative Flow for makers of all types. It is an active form of meditation, where you’re connected to your intuition, your gut feeling, your own inner self and the world, in a feeling of complete harmony.
If I step back to my years as an equestrian athlete, I can recall this feeling then too – being so in the zone, in a flow, reacting intuitively and instinctively, allowing my mind to go on pause and my pre-programmed habits to take control.
The cool thing I’ve learned, is this feeling is a thing you can train. It is an accessible state you can learn how to drop into easily, fluidly, and as you strengthen the muscle – for longer and longer periods of time.
Challenges will arise though, that test your mettle. That push you out of this harmonized state, into a feeling of frenzy, of fatigue, of frustration, of fear, or any of the many out-of-balance states of being. Anticipation and adrenaline, endorphins of good feelings, this too can be an imbalance – a fun and enjoyable one at times – that can impact your ability to stay in the zone. It can change how you choose, and make decision making less clear for you.
So when today’s current events combined with bouncing markets, I found myself feeling agitated and uncertain – What was expected of me? What should I do, should I ride the “buck” and stick to the trade? Or should I cut it loose, saying I’d rather take an emergency dismount than keep riding you?
To calm myself down, to re-center, and ground, I stepped away from my screens and picked up my coloring.
Over the past three years, this has been my primary tool for cultivating, strengthening, and enhancing my skill of being in the zone or dropping into my state of creative flow. Now that I’ve primed my mind to be cued by the routine of coloring, it takes me only a few moments of stillness to have my frayed nerves soothed.
Once calm, cool, and collected again, I was able to look at my charts and read my clues, and (while it was still challenging and I wanted to outsource it just a bit) able to make my decision.
I cut one loose, a Bear I didn’t want to ride down the slopes.
I kept the other two, one was a strong and steady Bull, the other bucking just a bit, yet still felt worth it.
There are times in life, where I stand firm by my choice to say “Maybe, and that’s final,” and others when even if I don’t like it – I have to make a quick and decisive intuitive decision, a clear “Yes or No.”
The one thing I’m grateful for, is the tools I have to help me make decisions more intuitively. A great book to read, if you want to expand your own learning, is The Intuitive Way by Penney Peirce. And of course – put it into practice with a daily dose of coloring.
Head on over to ZieBee.com to start your Journey of Colors and use coupon code “SoL2021” for 15% off your order.
Love as always,
~Mackenzie
