Ep 36 - Flow Isn't Something You Find, It's Something You Allow | Trust, Creativity & The Courage to Let Life Flow

What if flow isn't something you need to find?

What if it's already there—waiting for room?

In this solo episode of Midlife Audacity, Celeste explores a powerful shift in perspective: flow isn't something we create through more effort, more planning, or more control. Flow is our natural state. The real question becomes: what's blocking it?

Drawing on a lesson from teaching the cardiovascular system and a simple garden hose analogy, Celeste unpacks how perfectionism, overthinking, fear, and the need for certainty can restrict the natural flow of creativity, joy, abundance, and possibility in our lives.

This episode is an invitation to stop forcing and start allowing. To loosen your grip, trust the next step, and make room for what wants to emerge.

In This Episode:

✨ Why flow may already be available to you
 ✨ The surprising connection between blood flow and life flow
 ✨ How perfectionism, fear, and control create "kinks in the hose"
 ✨ The difference between passive trust and participatory trust
 ✨ Why courage often looks like surrender
 ✨ A powerful question to help you identify what's blocking your flow

If you've been craving more ease, creativity, intuition, and alignment in your life, this conversation is for you.

Mentioned in This Episode

Registration is now open for the August Book Study Seminar featuring The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron.

Together we'll explore the deeper theme of FLOW through creativity, intuition, trust, play, and authentic self-expression.

Soulful Sunday Newsletter:  Each week, you’ll hear from me in a way that’s simple, intentional, and easy to stay connected to.

Book Study Seminars:  Soul School has opened up new room called, Book Study Seminars.  This room meets four times a year to read, study and unpack not only the words, but our lives, together.  Our summer theme is identity FLOW and we start May 7th. For four weeks, we’ll study together using, The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, as our anchor text. Together, we will explore reconnecting to creativity, intuition, fun, movement, and authentic expression.  

Soul School: A curriculum for midlife women who are ready to remember their wisdom, protect their energy, project their power and come back into alignment. You don’t need fixing. You need to remember. Open for enrollment NOW.

Follow @the_conscious_coach_ 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Midlife Audacity. I'm your host, Celeste Dona, teacher, writer, speaker, and guide for women who are ready to rise into their next chapter boldly, soulfully, and unapologetically. Hey, hey! By the time this episode hits your ears, I will be in Italy. And I have waited so long to so, yes, I know it's taking me 36 years to get my ass back to this country, but it's not so easy to make that happen once life starts to take shape. And it really is disheartening when you think about it, right? That you know that you have this like deep desire for something, yet there's all of these barriers that prevent you from making it happen. And I'm here to tell you that that's all such a BS story that we create in our minds. There's absolutely ways that we can make these things happen. There are absolutely ways that we can manifest these things into our reality. But what ends up happening most of the time is that we cut ourselves off before we even allow the thought to take shape. We stop ourselves from even thinking that it's possible. Because the minute that our mind starts to dream up this juicy concoction of what it would be like to experience the thing that we want so badly, our mind quickly will take us out of it. Our mind will quickly start to justify why now is not the right time, or that we should wait, or that is way too unrealistic, or people will think I'm crazy, right? How many of you have thought about something that you have wanted to do for so long? And every time you give yourself those two seconds to daydream about it, you are pulled back into reality by something. And then our dream goes to the wayside. And I'm here to tell you that we are the problem. We are the problem. We are actually stopping flow from happening in our lives. And I hear this all the time, right? We hear the word flow, and I hear people say things like, I want more ease and flow in my life. I want life to feel easier. I want things to just fall into place. And while I think those desires are completely natural, I've been realizing that we don't think our way into flow. Flow is not something that we search for and find. Flow is something that we allow. And the other day, it's kind of funny because the other day I was teaching my seventh graders about the cardiovascular system. Now, I'm not a science teacher, I'm actually a reading and English teacher, but the text that we were reading was all about the cardiovascular system and um the veins and the arteries and what circulation is about and heart transplants and things that would be reasons why someone might need a heart transplant. That's what they were gonna be reading. So I had to give them a lot of background knowledge and I had to go through a lot of the vocabulary. So luckily, I do nerd out a lot on science-y kinds of stuff. So I was talking to them about blood flow and how the blood has to deliver oxygen and nutrients to every cell. And as I was teaching this concept of, you know, the oxygen-rich blood being delivered with our arteries in the systemic system, and then how when the oxygen is depleted from our blood, it has to make its way back up to the heart so that it could get pumped to the lungs and receive oxygen, like receive a reboot, so that it could then go back to the heart, so that the heart could then pump the blood with the oxygen-rich blood throughout the body, right? So there's like these two systems, the systemic system and the pulmonary system, and they're working all the time. And as I was teaching this concept to my students, um something really struck me, and it's so relatable to what I want to talk about with you guys today. Blood doesn't have to be convinced to move. Your heart doesn't wake up every morning and negotiate whether it feels like pumping or it doesn't. And here's the point: flow is a natural state. Things are meant to flow. But when arteries become narrowed or blocked, flow becomes restricted. The problem isn't that the body forgot how to flow. The problem is that something is getting in the way. Right? Plaque buildup, or maybe even hardening of the arteries, which is causing the artery to be less flexible and to have to work much harder to get blood moving through that vessel, you know. So as I'm teaching this, I couldn't help but to think, oh my goodness. This is the same way that flow works in our lives. Flow is always trying to move through us. Right? Joy is always trying to move through us. Creativity is always trying to move through us. Possibilities and our desires and our dreams are already moving through us. We don't have to force it, we don't have to think it, it's happening. But somewhere along the way, we develop these blockages, right? Not the same ones like in our body that happen with our arteries, right? But mental blocks, emotional blocks, spiritual blocks, and maybe those blocks are caused because of perfectionism or overthinking or fear. That's a big one that keeps us really blocked. Because our mind, its job is always, always to keep us in the familiar. And when we don't know what the outcome will be, it feels way too risky for our brain. And so our brain is going to download a bunch of scenarios that are going to keep us from taking action, right? And that is the block that I'm talking about. That is the restriction that we are up against. Our mind. Our mind is the block. And our mind is really good at living in the past, so it's gonna pull up any old story that it can that will prevent us from taking this unfamiliar, out of the box, maybe unrealistic jump. Right? And maybe the story might say something like this Who am I to do that? Right? Or maybe it's like a trust issue, right? Like you start to second guess is this even possible? You start to distrust yourself, you distrust your intuition, and the lack of trust, right, is going to then prevent you from doing the thing. That lack of trust is going to prevent you from the flow that is naturally meant to be occurring in your body and in your life. Here's another way to look at it. Think of a garden hose, right? When water stops flowing, we don't assume that the water supply has disappeared. Like, oh no, we're out of water, right? We look for the kink. You know, when that hose gets kind of like messed up, and you go back in your in your steps and you notice, oh, this look, there's a kink in the hose, and you unkink it, and all of a sudden the water starts to flow again. Somewhere along the line, something was restricting that water, that that kink was there, preventing that water from flowing. But the water did not disappear, the water was there. It was the kink that prevented the water from flowing, and the flow naturally wanted to occur, but there was the block. And I think many of us spend years trying to force water through the hose instead of looking at the kink, right? Instead of going back and working off of the kink and saying, okay, why isn't this flowing? What's preventing me from doing the thing, taking the action, creating the business, setting up the podcast, retiring, going to Italy, taking the trip, right? What is actually preventing us from doing it? And this is something that I have really thought about recently because, like I said, it's taken me 36 years to go back. Actually, I'm gonna correct that. I was back visiting my brother when he was over in Italy, when he studied abroad there. So I studied there 36 years ago. He studied there four, five years after I did. So probably 31 years it's been since I've been back in this country. And um, you know, and that's what has really gotten me thinking: like, why has it taken so long? Why did I allow myself to be so blocked, so kinked? Why did I make 101 excuses of why I couldn't have gotten back there? Even though deep down in my soul, I know that this country I am deeply connected to. So this is the reason why I was super excited about exploring this concept of flow and why this happens and why we get blocked and kinked, and then how to change things around so that we can allow more flow to happen in our lives. And so in August, inside of Book Study Seminars, we are going to be partnering with the mentor text, The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron. That's going to be our guide, but it's not gonna be a traditional like week by week. She has the book um broken up into 12 weeks. So it's like a 12-week course on finding your way back to creativity and flow. And so what we're gonna do is we're going to use it as a mentor text to really uh investigate uh that theme in our own lives, really investigate the theme of flow. So for four weeks, we're gonna be exploring creativity, intuition, trust, because I said that that was one of the things that blocks us. Play. How often do we limit our ability to play because we make ourselves wrong for wanting that, right? We say things like, oh, but I'm an adult. I don't need to play, I don't need to have fun. That's what kids do, I don't need to have that, but we do, we absolutely do. So what happens when we stop trying to force life and start partnering with it? That's what these four weeks are going to be about. Because honestly, you know, I don't think that women need more information. I think right now we live in a world where we have so much information. We have access to so much information, um, whether it's through social media or whether it's through regular media or whether it's through the internet. We're we're constantly, I think we're in like information overload, to be quite honest with you. But what I believe we need more of is we need to be in circles where we are giving each other permission, permission to get quiet, permission to slow down, permission to allow, permission to receive, permission to actually lean into our true self and to walk ourselves back home to wholeness, to wholeness. And last week I talked about feminine energy and masculine energy, and being able to have access to both of those energies is wholeness, and leaning into your heart and your soul's desire, and not shaming yourself for wanting things in your life to be a certain way and to go a certain way, right? Permission to trust those nudges. We've learned to ignore these little nudges that we've had, these little tiny glimpses, these daydreams, these bursts of excitement that we get when we think of a thought that that brings us joy and gets us really fired up. We have dimmed that light. We have learned to dim that light. We have learned to dim our creative side, our dreamy side, our exploring side. Our mind is the culprit behind a lot of that noise. And I really want to sit with a group of women this August and and really get down and dirty and really like lean into why do we do that to ourselves and how can we get better at leaning in to the things that really matter in our life and leaning into the the things that we want to happen for us and to us. So if you're feeling that too, if you're feeling that pull lately, I would love for you to join us. It's gonna be a small group. I am capping it off at 10 because there's value in the shared experience. And I think beyond 10, um, I I people get lost, and I don't want people to get lost in this experience. I want everyone to feel seen and heard. So I am gonna limit it. Um, but if you feel that pull, you can definitely find all the show notes, you know, all the details in the show notes. Um, because I'm really excited about launching that in August. Okay, so back to what I want to really share with you guys on this episode. You know, I I started off talking about how flow is natural, right? Like it's supposed to happen, and we don't think about it. Or we don't think about our heart beating, it just beats. We don't think about our blood flowing, it just flows. We don't think about water coming out of the hose, it just moves. The ocean doesn't think about making the waves, the waves just happen, right? But what I feel, and I've done this myself, is we try to plan everything. And we can't plan our way into flow. I've tried to control, but guess what? You can't control your way into flow, you can't think your way into flow. Every single time flow arrived is when I softened my grip, when I trusted, when I let go of the plan, of the control, of the thinking. And I allowed for things to unfold naturally. And I will tell you, that is not easy for me to do. Somebody who is a type A, who is a planner, who likes structure, that is not my strength. But my word for 2026 is flexibility. And within flexibility was absolutely this notion of trusting what is and allowing for more flow, not forcing it, not planning it, just allowing. So when I created the itinerary for this trip, I was very cognizant of that. And although we have a packed itinerary, we do. We have a packed itinerary. Um, I was very cognizant of putting too much into one day because I wanted time to just see what happens. I purposely did not make reservations at restaurants in every city that we were at. I purposely did not plan every single site that I wanted to see. Now, do I have a list of possible sites? Absolutely. I have possibilities, but they're all just like there. And I said to my kids when we were going over some of the things that, you know, everyone wanted to do, I said, I want to leave moments of this trip to just unfold naturally, to take shape without an agenda. And I'm gonna tell you that that was not the easiest thing in the world for me to do, but I will report back to you guys on how that went. But I want to get lost down like a narrow cobblestone alleyway. I wanna like discover this amazing gelato um, I what do they call them? Gelatterias? I'm saying that totally wrong. I don't really even know. But I want to discover like an amazing gelato place off the beaten path, you know? I want to wander into um a ceramic store and find the most beautiful, artistic, little tiny kitchen supply that I never even thought I wanted until I saw it. I want those things, and I'm trusting that they'll happen without me making sure that we stop at this place and that place and over here and doing that. I want to make sure that we are making room for that in this trip. Because, like I said, every single time that flow has arrived in my life, it's when I've softened my grip. When I stopped planning and taking all the action, when I stopped demanding certainty and leaned into trust, right? And it's interesting because I think sometimes people then take it to the opposite extreme, and they think, and this happens with manifestation also, they think, oh, okay, I'm just gonna like sit on the couch and close my eyes and let the universe and God soar spirit, whoever you look to as the higher power, I'm gonna let them do all the work. I'm gonna let them do all the heavy lifting, and I'm just gonna like sit here and like feel it, and it's all going to just happen. But that's also not what goes on. Like, that's not how manifestation works, okay. Flow and manifesting requires participatory trust, right? You do have to take the step. I'm not gonna find that amazing gelato place if I stay in my Airbnb the entire day. It's not gonna just knock on my door and get delivered, right? I have to trust that I'm going to find it as I'm walking, right? I have to take the step. I have to still show up. I have to have the conversations. The business won't just get launched miraculously because I sat on my couch and wished it to be. I do have to have the conversations with the people to get the business launched, right? The book is not going to publish itself. I have to take the action to start putting the pen to the paper, or maybe the keys to the keyboard, right? The fingers to the keyboard in order to make the book become a reality. But I can trust that once I do so, that the flow will start to take shape. That I don't have to have every chapter planned out before I put my fingers to the keyboard. I don't have to have every uh restaurant detailed and outlined in order to find the perfect little trutteria to eat at. Is that you think it and then instead of dismissing it, you change that action to going and doing, and the universe is going to meet you. God is going to meet you because it knows He knows that you're taking that step. He will meet you there. That's called faith. That's trust. And I think many of us stop at just the idea. We stop at just the daydream. We stop at that little light that gets sparked and then say, no, no, we can't do that. No, no, it's not gonna work. No, no, that's not logical. No, no, that's unrealistic. No, no, what will people think? Right? And we kink the hose. We kink the hose. We block the artery. What happens when you block the artery? You die. How many times are we gonna keep blocking the artery? Let it flow. Have that idea, that spark, notice that idea and that spark, and then take a different set of action. Change what your mind is saying and say, okay, yeah, all those things could be, but what if they're not? Right? What if what if it's a different scenario? What if there's other possibilities that can unfold? And you lean into that and you make the move, you take the action, and then flow meets you right there. God meets you right there and supports you right there. And you know what? What's really cool about what we're diving into in August with the book study seminar and the artist way is that those that were with me from the beginning and did the winter book club seminar, and they in that seminar, we explored the surrender experiment and we explored what happens when you stop arguing with life and you actually start saying yes to it. And then in our spring book study seminar, we worked with The Big Leap and we explored our upper limit problem and the ways that we unconsciously hold ourselves back from the very things we desire. And those two books have set the stage perfectly for what we're gonna be talking about in August with the artist's way. It's the best logical step because in this seminar, we're gonna be exploring what becomes possible when we trust ourselves enough to follow that nudge, right? To play, to create, to listen, to allow. Because I'll tell you this: creativity isn't reserved for artists. Creativity is how you live your life, it's how you solve problems, it's how you love, how you lead, how you express yourself, how you create your next chapter. And I think many of us aren't missing creativity. We've simply developed kinks in the hose to block our creativity because it's so unfamiliar and so darn scary that we just feel better when we kink the hose and stop it from really flowing because we don't know where it's gonna go. And that I think scares the hell out of many of us. So I'll leave you with this quick question. What's the kink in your hose right now? What's restricting the natural flow of joy, creativity, abundance, peace, or possibility in your life? And what would happen if you loosened your grip on it just a little? Maybe flow isn't something you need to chase. Maybe it's already here, waiting. And maybe the most audacious thing you could do isn't force your way forward. Maybe it's trusting that next step, trusting yourself, trusting life, trusting that you don't need to see the entire path to begin walking. Because boldness isn't always pushing harder. Sometimes boldness is allowing. Sometimes courage looks like surrender. Sometimes audacity looks like saying yes to the nudge before you actually know where it will lead. So thank you guys so much for spending time with me today. I will definitely keep you informed of my trip. So you can follow me on Instagram, you'll see it in my stories. And next week, I am going to have a beautiful flow meditation ready for you. So until next time, keep being bold, keep being audacious, and keep making room for what wants to flow through you. Bye bye.