Flow State – The New Trauma Healing Method
Flow State – The New Trauma Healing Method
18.08.25
I can confidently say that the thing that helped me the most when healing from CPTSD was experiencing the Flow State via creative endeavors and intense physical activity.
At the time, I didn’t know what was happening, I just felt great after these activities and wanted to do more of them. Over time, I started noticing this deep shift in my psychology. I wasn’t living in my head anymore, constantly worrying about the future or replaying broken memories, and I finally felt safe in my body.
I broke the cycle and was now the author of my life.
After experiencing this shift, I also started experimenting with my clients, yielding incredible results.
The beautiful thing about Flow is that this mechanism is ingrained in human biology. In other words, this state is independent of personality traits, and everyone can experience it. Flow is just another skill that can be trained.
Now, I want to explore why the Flow State is crucial for trauma healing. Despite having tons of personal and professional anecdotal evidence, my formal research is still in its early stages, but the key element seems to be the transient hypofrontality that happens during Flow.
Let’s start by exploring what is the Flow State.
The 6 Flow Characteristics
Flow can be simply defined as a state in which you feel your best and perform at your best. Everything just flows because well… flow is flowy.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi discovered that Flow has six core psychological characteristics:
- Complete Concentration: You feel fully focused and engaged in the task at hand. All of your senses are heightened, and you’re absorbed in the right here, right now. With it comes a deep sense of enjoyment.
- The Merger of Action and Awareness: This is when you feel like “you’re one” with everything and everyone. The barrier between the self and the thing you’re doing melts away. That’s when musicians experience being one with their instruments, for instance.
- Our Sense of Self Vanishes: That nagging voice constantly criticizing us and instilling doubt finally quietens. Our sense of self-consciousness vanishes, and we experience freedom to act and be who we truly are. We get out of our own way.
- An Altered Sense of Time: In Flow, time passes differently. You can experience things in slow motion, past and future merge, and there’s only “the deep now”. This is technically known as “time dilation”; sometimes 5 minutes is experienced as 5 hours, or 5 hours experienced as 5 minutes.
- Paradox of Control: We feel like the masters of our fate and in complete control of the situation, even in situations we usually can’t control.
- Autotelic Experience: This is probably the best part of the Flow State since the activity itself becomes so pleasurable and meaningful that this is its own reward. In other words, you’re deeply happy and satisfied just because you get to experience flow, and external rewards are irrelevant. That’s why Flow is the source of intrinsic motivation.
Lastly, Flow isn’t an on-and-off switch, but a spectrum.
Sometimes we experience elements of this state, or a micro flow. Other times, we’re completely absorbed by this state and we experience a macro flow, aka mystical experiences. Carl Jung calls these experiences numinous experiences, and in his view, they are the only ones truly capable of healing neurosis.
In summary, during Flow, we’re fully engaged in the deep now. If you’ve been paying attention, you probably noticed that this is the exact opposite of being trapped in trauma or a shadow complex.
How Flow Heals (Transient Hypofrontality)
To make things simple, the first thing that happens during trauma is a fundamental disconnection from the body, and you start living exclusively in your head.
The prefrontal cortex is often working overtime, leading to endless self-monitoring and self-criticism, over-identification with the past, and hypervigilance. Moreover, the body is constantly tense, feeling like the past trauma is still happening.
The person feels stuck in self-defeating narratives that drive all of their behaviors and decisions, thus contributing to perpetuating the cycle.
In contrast, during flow, the activity of the prefrontal complex diminishes temporarily, and there’s a transient hypofrontality.
This change shuts down the inner critic, and you feel deeply embodied. Your system is inundated by “feel-good chemicals” – dopamine, norepinephrine, anandamide, endorphins, and serotonin.
This cocktail reduces fear and gives you a sense of agency, motivation, makes you more creative, you start envisioning new possibilities, and experience joy and safety.
During Flow, since your sense of self vanishes, you get to experience a new version of yourself. This gives you the possibility to solidify a new identity free from the past and labels of ineptitude.
Experiencing flow can literally change how your brain works.
In Flow, there’s a 500% increase in productivity, upwards to 700% increase in creativity, and the real possibility of healing.
I hope you’re excited as I am to continue this research as I’m just scratching the surface. I’ll keep you updated.
Rafael Krüger – Live an Audacious Life
Whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:
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