Fight, Flight or Flow?

One Monday, Nitin decided and scheduled a daily coach call with me at 8 am – Mon to Fri. Come Tuesday, and there was no call from him at the scheduled time. When I called him back then and later during the day, the calls went unanswered.

On Wednesday, Nitin called me on the dot and came strainght to the point. He had gone out with his daughter and did not make the scheduled coaching call. Reflectively, he mused, “I observed myself running away”. “Great observation”, I agreed. “And, what else are you running away from life?” And he continued, “In quite a few things!”

For eons, man had 2 choices: Fight or flight. Is that all we have today? I asked him. He pondered for a while.

“I feel my business is keeping me tied, I wan’t to run away from it. I also want to share a breakthrough with you”, he continued. ” I have written the first page of the book I have been wanting to write for ages.”

“My observation is that you run away from things that are life-giving; whereas you continue with activities that are life-taking. You are evidently stifling yourself.”

“I am not getting you”, he said.

I explained to him how he continued with his business even though he was stressed most of the time. How he persisted with it, giving reasons that it was necessary for him to do so to keep income coming in. But the evidence is that hardly any of that money till date has found its way to his personal bank account.

On the contrary, he yearns for and experiences satisfaction when he wrote his first page today or when he is with his family; and yet he struggles to create time for this and inevitably ‘other priorities’ keep him away from these priorities.

“You experience satisfaction and fulfulment when you allow energy to flow; and frustration, resentment and regret when you stop the flow of energy.”

“So now you can fight, (take) flight or flow”, I concluded.