What Causes You to Lose Track of Time?
A few months ago my husband and I had the opportunity to go on our first RV Rally with our RV group. We went to the Fountain of Youth Spa and RV Resort way out in the desert near the Salton Sea about an hour from our home.
My Hiking Adventure
It was lots of fun getting to know the other members in group and soaking in the mineral springs. But the highlight of the trip for me was the morning we spent hiking out to the Bat Caves Buttes.
I was very uncertain of my hiking skills but it was the perfect weather, in the 70s with a light breeze and the hike was mostly flat with some fairly easy climbing. I must admit I was the slowest hiker in the group but it wasn’t a competition and everyone was very encouraging. Check out the pictures below to see how thrilled I was to have made it to the top of the little hill! And the best news is my exertion did not trigger a painful flare.
Hiking out to the Bat Caves Buttes with our RV group near the Salton Sea.
Now, I probably would have shared this story with you regardless of today’s topic but it turns out that my hiking adventure is the perfect illustration of the second element in our series exploring the PERMAH model, the element of Engagement.
As you may recall the PERMAH model is a scientific theory of happiness that describes the elements, or building blocks, that support our overall well-being and includes positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, accomplishment and health.
Engagement is defined as living in the present moment and being focused entirely on the task at hand. While I was hiking, I had to concentrate carefully on what I was doing so I wouldn’t fall and I had to focus to keep up with the group.
Being out in nature, with lovely, supportive people, in the wide-open spaces of the California desert in the warm winter weather allowed all my cares to momentarily recede to the background and I experienced that lovely sensation that is often referred to as “being in the zone” or “being in flow.”
Flow is Synonymous with Engagement
The Positive Psychology Center describes Engagement below. [1]
“Engagement is an experience in which someone fully deploys their skills, strengths, and attention for a challenging task.
Based on Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s research, this produces an experience called “flow” that is so gratifying that people are willing to do it for its own sake, rather than for what they will get out of it.
The activity is its own reward. Flow is experienced when one’s skills are just sufficient for a challenging activity, in the pursuit of a clear goal, with immediate feedback on progress toward the goal.
In such an activity, concentration is fully absorbed in the moment, self-awareness disappears, and the perception of time is distorted in retrospect, e.g., time stops.
Flow can be experienced in a wide variety of activities, e.g., a good conversation, a work task, playing a musical instrument, reading a book, writing, building furniture, fixing a bike, gardening, sports training or performance, to name just a few.”
I read Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s classic book, “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience” many years ago and I found it fascinating and inspiring.
When our day-to-day life is solely focused on managing troublesome symptoms of fibromyalgia and chronic illness it can feel as though all the joy of living has gone out of our lives.
Cultivating deep engagement or flow in our lives can release joy and creativity and can give us much needed energy to engage effectively with all aspects of our lives.
How to Cultivate More Engagement in Your Life
So, let’s go back to the question in the title of the newsletter: What are the things that cause you to lose track of time? Take a moment to write your own list and then if you need some more ideas check out this list of activities from Dr. Chris Moore. [2]
- Spending time on a puzzle or board game.
- Playing a musical instrument.
- Yoga or meditation.
- Writing a story, poem or blog.
- Being creative through drawing, painting or cross-stitching.
- Participating in individual or team sports.
- Working on a new display in the garden.
- Practicing new cooking and baking recipes.
- Making a photo collage or video of a recent trip.
One of the activities I do with all the women I work with is to complete a Joy List worksheet, designed by Tami Stackelhouse, to help them reconnect with things that bring them joy and then to figure out ways to bring more joy into their lives safely, without triggering a flare up of their symptoms.
This is always a fun exercise because they realize that there are still plenty of things that bring them joy and they can usually still have them in their lives with a few accommodations even as they manage their fibromyalgia.
If you are struggling with your fibromyalgia right now, bringing more joy and engagement or flow into your life may be hard to imagine. I assure you that this is something I work on with all my coaching clients and we have a lot of fun doing so!
If you are wondering if a health coach like me could help you become more engaged in your life and experience more flow and joy, I’d be happy to set up a time to talk. It’s easy to schedule a free Flourishing with Fibromyalgia Coaching Consultation HERE.
