Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

My most pleasureable experience with flow is when I’m writing. It feels like the words come out of my fingers instead of out of my head. It almost feels like writing is a physical activity like roller skating or riding a bike. Sometimes I feel like I am not even part of the writing process and it all has to do with my body. I usually lose track of time when I’m writing and Mike will come into the room asking if I’m ever going to go to bed. I look at the clock on my screen and hours have gone by.

Writing can be difficult sometimes, so I like to read a lot to get better skills. I also do a lot of writing that never sees the light of day just to practice. Just when I think I’ve got this writing thing down, I learn something new that tells me that I have just begun on this writing journey.

Writing feels so good that I wish I could do it all day long. Some days, I’m actually able to write all day long, but others, I’m barely able to write a sentence. I tend to go in spurts, but when I get going, it feels so good that I don’t want to stop. I’m happiest when I’m writing.

The last time I ate food for just pleasure instead of hunger was about a week or so ago. I had a hard time when I came back from SXSW. I had met so many amazing people there that SLC felt lonely. I felt so isolated here and I longed to talk to all those interesting people I met a week earlier. I had a hard time keeping my eating under control the first week back from SXSW.

Eating for pleasure feels good. I’m not going to lie about that. It DOES make me feel better to binge on high calorie food. If it didn’t, I wouldn’t have trouble with eating. Comparing bingeing to being in flow, however, is something completely different. I would trade a thousand binges in order to get into flow every day. It wouldn’t have to be with writing, either. I could be in flow with crocheting or taking pictures or even with exercise.

Bingeing just doesn’t compare to those times when the words are flowing out of my fingers at such a fast pace that I don’t even realize that I am typing them.