When I’m in a writing flow -- deep in craft, brainstorming, drafting, or editing-- I notice I move through the world with curiosity and wonder.

Ideas bubble up. I ask questions and I feel in relationship with what wants to be made.

This flow, it’s a juicy, rich creative space.

Q: What does your inner creative life feel like when you're truly in the flow?

Step into that.

Remember a time you were in your creative flow, whether it's today, yesterday, or five years ago, and especially if you’ve been yearning to have it back.

This is the "Happy Loop" practice -- the writing flow state...

I'll tell you why I call it that in a moment.

Imagine yourself in that writing-flow state and notice it through the senses:

• What does it look like?

• What does it smell like?

• What does it sound like?

• What does it taste like? (What are you sipping or nibbling?)

• What does it feel like in your body?

• Are you sitting, lounging, walking, dictating?

• What are you thinking? 

• What are you saying to yourself?

• What are your surroundings like?

• Is anyone nearby, even if you can’t see them?

Then come back to now...

and write down what you noticed.

Name this state -- your flow, your writer stance, your writing zone -- whatever feels true.

Here’s the cool thing...

In NLP (neurolinguistic programming), this is called the desired state -- an experience we want more of in our lives.

Your mind doesn’t always distinguish between something real and something vividly imagined. That’s part of why fiction is so powerful.

By taking a few minutes to inhabit your desired state, you start training your brain to recognize the signals of it -- and to search for the conditions that help it return.

You don’t have to strain. Your system begins naturally integrating the pattern. Brains are cool that way.

And this is how we can create happy loops...

When we're happier in our creative work, we impact others simply by living the dream of being a writer.

We impact them sometimes without saying a word.

So, explore your writer flow state... and create happy loops in your life, ripples on contentment because you are living on purpose.

❤️