flow living

Here I sit. Thinking about it all. My back against warm, gargantuan rocks that hold a pyramid to the Moon-Gods. Someone, somewhere, plays a trumpet that boldly distorts across this lush valley to blend with distant church bells that chime to the purrs of a ginger cat who nestles in my lap. Eyes well up. How did I come to be?

I’ve never fitted in to a nice neat box.

Flow living is about collaboration. It unites the environment with a happy, neurodivergent brain, that pushes curiosity to the forefront to encourage a ‘noticing’ of the way the world is working. It embraces the full lean into creativity to question, to seek adventure, to see the world differently and to do it in a way that enables others to learn and grow too. It invites the authentic person to come out behind the mask and wave to the world while doing a hop and a jump so that others feel the courage to peek out with difference. It calls for meeting Earth with humbleness as a human, and to think about everything else that exists within our small time here. It’s holding your hands up to say, yes, I’m improvising my way through life.

But tangibly, what does it mean? For me, it meant seeing colours again. I quit the commitment of paying London rent on a greying shoebox and started to exist within different worlds to scrimp, save and experience. I converted a van, my dreamboat, and go from working in muddy festival fields, to dorming it up in hostels across the world and then jump to housesit mansions with swimming pools in return for looking after animals. Embarking on adventures with so many types of minds to learn different perspectives and experiences. And through sharing, we come together through our differences. This has a power.

And so, as I stood on top of a mountain in Mexico to actually listen with tears to the thousands of Monarch butterflies flap as a man tells me to encircle my ears with my palms to tune-in like an animal would, I realised I could understand the world so much more by exploring and learning from different communities and environments as opposed to sitting still and feeling stagnant. This year was the first time I could really listen, really notice, and see first-hand in a joined up way how the world is changing and communities are responding. In living this way, whilst being conscious of my own priveliges and background, I get closer to understanding. From this, work becomes more authentic, more inclusive, more aware. Ideas come and grow into collaborations across borders, sectors, species. And in rejecting the grind, I feel my body and my mind thank me for not trying to slot in anymore. I get more out of this way of living than I ever did before, and because of that I can give more back.

And why am I sharing this? Because living this way is both a balance of choice, and of feeling unable to be part of having a ‘normal’ life. A balance of barrel scraping and confidence pretending to get the small amount of grants that enable this freedom to think and to question. I know many other creatives and people with health conditions that are feeling undervalued in the ways that they too have had to bend to live. So why should the individual have to mould in silence and society not adapt? Only through speaking about it are we going to be able to make true, inclusive change for the future of our planet and the people within it. The only way to advocate is to share our vulnerabilities and our stories.

So to anyone else trying and failing at fitting into a society that too is failing. I say, lean into what makes you you. And to those that hold the keys to the office kingdoms, what can you do to make work more accessible? What small choices can you make to try to make your world a bit better for the people within it? What steps can you make to help foster empathy, with both people and the environment? How can we embrace difference more?

Lets experiment in creating roles that enable people to question. How can we give the ‘creative brain’, the ‘thinker’ , ‘the observer’, the ‘neurodivergent brain’ the standing that it deserves so that we can cultivate ideas to help us out of the mess we find ourselves in? These people are so powerful, and they are exhausting themselves by clawing at closed doors. They are burnt out, and with that so is the potential of making incredible change.

Improvising and learning and having empathy are the most important things we can do with this time we have. Staying as curious as we can.