what's my process?
I am challenging myself to write about processes that help me feel free and in flow for the next 7 days
For the next 7 days, I am challenging myself to write about processes that help me feel free and in flow each day. In this post, I share a bit of what I mean about process and why this matters to me.
I think of myself as a process enthusiast - I am often drawn to frameworks, I get a hit of satisfaction from finding new sources of efficiency and I especially enjoy creating new and better ways of thinking and behaving for myself.
This has generally been great for me, both in school and work (where this is explicitly valued) and in life where the ability to reframe challenges as opportunities for creating new processes can be a source of resilience.
It has also gotten me into trouble at times.
Feeling like I am not good enough if the process does not yield an expected outcome. Getting really good at pursuing outcomes, but not really tracking whether those outcomes are right for me or the situation. Valuing conscious thought, evidence, and observable things more than subconscious intuitions, emotions, or subtle signals that my body is picking up on.
Ironically, a solution to overcoming these ptifalls is also creating processes, just more integrative ones. And by integrative I mean processes that start with asking myself questions like:
What do I actually want?
How do I want to feel most of the time?
How can I create processes that continuously help me get there?
Disclaimer: There is an important way in which we are all in process already, whether we think about it or not.
On the most obvious level of the body, our heart is constantly pumping blood to keep us alive. On the level of the mind, we’re constantly experiencing thoughts arising, without our control. And one could argue that on some more esoteric, spiritual level, our deeper self is constantly looking to grow and experience itself more fully.
I’ve been getting a lot of value from simply acknowledging that, perhaps as a reminder that I am a creature that exists for the sake of existence and I do not need to do anything to just be from minute to minute.
I generally think about the process space in two categories:
processes I intutively do and they make me feel good, therefore I don’t think about them much
processes that I do because of some internal misalignment (e.g. addiciton, fear, insecurity, avoidance), they make me feel bad, and it’s hard to problem solve them because confronting them is energy-draining
In both of these cases, I find that consciously connecting with these processes to be generative.
In the first case, explicitly naming a process that just works well for me feels internally strengthening often leads to more gratitude and appreciation for myself.
In the second case, the trick seems to be bringing an unconsciously-driven process out into the open, welcoming it with openness (there must be a reason why I do it, let me be curious about it), resolving the underlying misalignment and creating a new process that integrates the new information we gained about ourselves.
For example, one might realise that they’re smoking cigarettes because they like the social interactions that happen over a smoke. If they can take ‘quality interactions’ as an outcome, they might find many different ways to achieve that do not involve direct health risks.
My working theory of what is a process goes something like:
An integrative framework that integrates a) what happens in my mind/body/heart and b) the possibilities and constraints of my environment → in order to create more flourishing.
I would love to create a culture where myself and others around me feel safe enough to share what they’re confused about and how they are figuring it out, so we can inspire each other in this hard task of being human.
That’s why I’d like to challenge myself to share something about the processes that help me orient toward more flourishing for the next 7 days and see the impact it’s going to have on me.