Creativity and reaching the elusive state called ‘flow’

The state known as ‘flow’ cannot be reached through a process, or in other words, through a step by step of do this, then do that,.. it has to be come upon in the present, found anew fresh everyday. Stories can be used in a powerful way to to dvelve into the self and I found the audio books by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés very unusual and innovative in this regard. The first time I read her book was, I think, two years back and the very first story was like a shock to the system. Dr Estés says that fairy tales have been cleaned up and they originally did not have the happy endings that they now have. The characters in the stories were symbolic and represented archetypes, the various themes in the stories have universal meaning. You come upon the different states within yourself and the state of your relationships with the people you are with or in contact with. And one is no longer living on the surface, not knowing why certain things are happening or why certain things are just stuck or so rooted within that one never seems to be able to get away from some modes of thinking and being. Just the understanding of what is happening within oneself helps us to find ways to circumvent obstacles and come upon those fallow lands inside so as to tend to them and cultivate them and so to reap a rich harvest and so as to sow seeds again and earn dividends hopefully in a continuous prcoess. Because creativity is not something that can be  switched on and off like a light switch but rather something that happens in cycles and it’s darned exciting to discover these processes and cycles within oneself!