Flow Revisited: Steve Cooke--June 28, 2008

"Flow Revisited: Csikszentmihalyi meets Ellis"

Mihalyi Csiksentmihalyi describes the psychology of optimal experience in his 1990 book called Flow. Flow is described as the optimal combination of challenge and skill. Albert Ellis, the father of cognitive behavior therapy, has explained how to cope with frustration by being both disappointed and accepting of reality. Are the secular theories of grace? Are they competitive or complementary?

Opening words
. . . We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness . . . .
(Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776)

Aristotle said that more than anything else, men and women seek happiness.
(Csikszentmihalyi, p. 1)
Why did God make us?
God made us to show forth His goodness and to share with us His everlasting happiness in heaven.
Father McGuire. The New Baltimore Catechism and Mass, NY, Benziger Bros.1953.

Ed Diener, a researcher from the University of Illinois, found that very wealthy people (400 richest Americans) report being happy on average 77 percent of the time, while people of average wealth report being happy on 62 percent of the time. (Csikszentmihalyi, p. 45).

Trouble? Life is trouble. Only death is no trouble.
(Zorba the Greek, in Campbell, p. 65)

History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
(James Joyce, in Campbell, p.65)

The [Holy] Grail becomes symbolic of an authentic life that is lived in terms of its own volition … that carries itself between the pairs of opposites of good and evil, light and dark… The best we can do is lean toward the light, toward the harmonious relationships that come from compassion with suffering.
(Campbell, p. 197)

No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible, until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.
(J. S. Mill, Csikszentmihalyi, p. 9)

Meditation:

People are disturbed not by the events that happen to them,
but by their view of them
(Epictetus, in Ellis, p. 184)

Closing Words

"An Irish Blessing"

It’s easy to be pleasant
When life flows like a song.
But the person-worthwhile is the one who can smile
when everything just goes wrong.

For the test of the heart is trouble,
which always comes with years.
And the smile that’s worth all the praise on earth
Is the smile that shines through tears.

Sermon
1. UUA principles addressed
a) Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations
b) A free and responsible search for truth and meaning
2. My intentions
To give you a path on which to pursue happiness
To synthesize the work of Flow (Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi)
with Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (Albert Ellis)

Thesis:
1. Happiness or grace is the experience of enjoyment defined as flow
2. Flow is the union of challenge and skill
3. The absence of flow leads to boredom or anxiety
4. Self-shame and self-blame keep us from a return to flow.
5. Explore the possibility of a flow-like process that will get you back to a true flow experience, aka happiness or state of grace.

I will do this w/ words, pictures, homework, and a song

Background and defining terms:

Flow, Challenge, and Grace (March 26, 1995)
Synthesis of Flow (Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi) with
Family Systems Theory (Murray Bowen)

Topics covered included:
Micro & macro flow,
life themes, and
Characteristics of highly differentiation-of- self people
1. Operationally clear about he differences between feeling and thinking
2. routinely make decisions on the basis of thinking
3. life is much more under the control of deliberate thought
4. free to engage in goal directed activity w/ others and
5. to lose themselves in the intimacy of a close relationship
6. less reactive to praise or blame
7. have a more realistic evaluation of his own self
(Bowen, p. 475)

There are people, regardless of their material conditions,
who are able to improve the quality of their lives,
who are satisfied, and
who have a way of making those around them also a bit happier.
who are open to a variety of experiences,
who keep on learning until the day they die, and
who have strong ties and commitments to other people and the environment in which they live.
They enjoy whatever they do, even if tedious or difficult;
they are hardly ever bored, and
they can take in stride anything that comes their way.
Perhaps their greatest strength is that
they are in control of their lives.
(Csikszentmihalyi, p. 10)

Grace:
1. On this, almost all Christians agree: Grace is God's initiative and choice to make a path of salvation available for men.
2. From the non-theist perspective, grace appears to be the same as [good] luck
3. In Catholicism, grace is God’s divine life itself, which enables the work of Christ to flow through us.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_grace)

Flow
Flow is the process of achieving happiness through control over your inner life by meeting challenge with action through the perfection of skills (physical, sensory, symbolic, job, and relationship)

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy
Thesis
You largely choose to disturb yourself about the unpleasant events of you life, which is encouraged by social learning
Irrational beliefs and self sabotaging habits are choices you make in the present
It take work and practice to alter irrational beliefs, unhealthy feelings, and self destructive behaviors. (Ellis, pp. 243-244)

For example
It’s great to succeed, but I can fully accept myself a s a person and have an enjoyable experiences even when I fail.
I don’t have to succeed to be a worthwhile person.
(Ellis, p. 241)

Csikszentmihalyi and Flow
Flow is enjoyment not pleasure

Thesis:
how people respond to stress determines whether they will profit or be miserable
It is possible to enjoy life despite (perhaps even because of) adversity
the periods of struggle to overcome challenges are what people find as the most enjoyable times of their lives.
which result in a more complex self

Ralph Ellison: goal
‘to snatch a little of life’s insights even in the face of insurmountable odds’

Elements of Enjoyment
1. Confronted w/ a challenging activity that requires skill
2. Concentration that merges action and awareness
3. & 4) Clear Goals and Feedback
5) Actions have a deep but seemingly effortless involvement
6) You have a sense of complete control
7) You lose all self-consciousness but emerge w/ a greater sense of self
8) Your sense of time is altered and transformed
(Csikszentmihalyi, p. 48)

I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance w/in our own innermost being and reality. … so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive …
(Campbell, p. 5)

Control over consciousness cannot be institutionalized. As soon as it becomes part of a set of social rules and norms, it ceases to be effective in the way it way originally intended to be. (Csikszentmihalyi, p. 21).

Notes on Albert Ellis. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: It Works for me – It can work for you, Amherst, NY, Prometheus Books 2004.

Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy
to use my head to govern my feelings
to govern feelings but not squelch them
to avoid an over-optimistic attitude that consists of finding something to be glad about in every situation.
to retain some bad feelings so that they motivate me to keep trying to change the obnoxious events in my life while savoring the present and future
(Ellis, p. 61)

REBT: Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy

Goal
Adversity
Rational Beliefs
“I don’t like this (e.g., unloved, unsuccessful),
Healthy Consequences
“sorrow, regret, disappointment, frustration, annoyance, displeasure, irritation”

Goal
Adversity
Irrational Beliefs
“I must have a different outcome.”
Unhealthy Consequences
“shame, embarrassment, humiliation, anger, desperation, detachment, rage, depression, panic, self-pity, ”

Disputing irrational beliefs
“Why must you have a different outcome?”

Rational Mantra (Gradient vector toward flow)
I do not need what I want. I never have to succeed, no matter how much I wish to do so.
I can stand being rejected by someone I care for. It won’t kill me and I can still lead a happy life.
No human is damnable and worthless, including me. (Ellis, p. 248)

Irrational mantra (Gradient vector away from flow)
I must do well and have to be approved by people whom I find important.
Other people must treat me fairly and nicely.
Because I am not being approved by people whom I find important, as I have to be, my life is awful and terrible.

Shame attacking homework exercise:
Challenge and a skill aka a flow like experience to get back to flow
an adventure that will maintain you emotionally health and keep you reasonably happy
no matter what kinds of misfortunes assail you.(Ellis, p. 243)

Think of something that you would consider v. shameful and humiliating.
Pick something that would embarrass you
Do it in public where other can stare and laugh.
Don’t do it as a joke or for amusement.
Don’t impose too much
Don’t frighten or harm others
Don’t do anything that will get you in trouble w/ the law
Keep risking and doing things that you irrationally fear,
Keep acting on your irrational fears on a regular basis

Example:
Getting on a bus and yelling out all the stops at the top of your lung or
going into a department store and yelling “Ten thirty-three and all is well”
Stop a stranger in a popular meeting place and say “I just got out of the loony bin, What month is it.”
Walk a banana on a leash and feed it w/ another banana.

Lesson:
you are the shamer of yourself,
no one else can make you feel humiliated.
Choice:
to feel shame and anxiety or
to feel regret and concern

Thesis:
1. Happiness or grace is the experience of enjoyment defined as flow
2. Flow is the union of challenge and skill
3. The absence of flow leads to boredom or anxiety
4. Self-shame and self-blame keep us from a return to flow.
5. The shame-attaching exercise will help get you back to a true flow experience, aka happiness or state of grace.

References

Bowen, Murray. Family Therapy in Clinical Practice. Northvale, NJ: Aronson, 1994.
Campbell, Joseph and Moyers, Bill D. The Power of Myth. New York: Doubleday, 1988.
Csikzentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience., NY, NY: HarperCollins, 1990.
Ellis, Albert. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: It Works for me – It can work for you. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books 2004.

Appendix
Melvina Reynolds, “Somewhere Between”
Sometimes I think I'm a sinner,
Sometimes I think I'm a saint,
Sometimes I don't know what I am,
But I know that a saint I ain't.

Chorus:
Somewhere between the good and the evil,
Somewhere between the right and the wrong,
Somewhere between the kind and the mean,
Somewhere between is where I belong.

Sometimes I'd steal from a baby,
Sometimes I'd give you my shirt,
Sometimes I lie on my couch and moan,
'Cause my conscience is doing me dirt.

(Chorus)

Sometimes I rail at my kinfolk,
Sometimes I'm gentle and good,
Sometimes I wonder, and count every blunder,
And wish that I knew where I stood.

(Chorus)

If I could just peek at my record,
I'd know if it's dirty or clean,
I'd know if I'm destined for heaven or hell,
Or to flow like a bird in between.

(Chorus)