Creative Flow and Hobbies Lower Stress and Boost Moods

Innovative program created in response to the pandemic leads to just-released 498-page guidebook, chock full of prompts for boosting wellness and creativity.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, UNITED STATES, September 7, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ -- As we get used to living during a pandemic over the long-term, there is an increasing need for stress management solutions that really work.

In her new book, Leap With Me: A Creative Path to Finding and Following Your True Voice, meditation teacher Laurie Smith shares how creative flow can help us manage stress, find our voice and boost our moods.

“At the start of the lockdown, I challenged myself to write in flow every day, mostly as a way of managing my own stress,” said Laurie Smith, who is also the mother of two teenagers.

“I was amazed to discover how calming doing something creative everyday was,” she continued. Not only did her daily flow practice help lower her stress, she also felt a boost in her energy, moods and sense of purpose.

“When I realized how creative flow was improving my outlook on life, I wanted to share,” said Smith. She invited friends to join her, friends invited friends, and a creative community grew.

Since March 2020, Smith has facilitated more than twenty 28-Day Flow Challenges, which she offers for free and have included participants from four different continents, aged 15 to 83.

Smith’s free 28-Day Flow Challenges include daily emails and zoom calls where she leads visualization meditations to help people relax and connect with their intuition. She encourages participants to choose their own daily activities that bring them joy and are easy to do in a few minutes.

“Joy is contagious. When one person feels joy, other people start feeling good too,” said Smith. “When we do activities that we love to do, we increase the chance that we will enter a flow state.”

Flow was first identified by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the 1970s as a natural state of mind that happens when we are so engaged in what we are doing that we lose track of time or our surroundings. Research suggests that flow may trigger brain activity that has also been linked to improved mental wellness.

In addition to often experiencing flow, many participants in Smith's 28-Day Flow Challenges have created new long-term habits and report a boost in their moods and outlook on life. Smith believes the benefits participants report are primarily because they get to choose their own joyful activities, and because the community is so supportive.

“I am constantly amazed by how unique and creative the activities are that people choose. On a deep, intuitive level, we all know what is uniquely good for us in each moment,” said Smith. “Even when we don't have control over external events, we still have the power to feel positive and peaceful.”

During one of her flow challenges, Smith found herself writing poetry although, as she admits, “I never considered myself a poet or even wanted to be one. That’s the crazy thing about flow. It often takes our lives in wonderful new directions.”

Within one week, Laurie wrote more than 80 poems about her own creative flow process. Her poems covered topics like inner critics, perfectionism, overcoming self-doubt and hearing her own true voice. She incorporated her poems into Leap With Me: A Creative Path to Finding and Following Your True Voice, a 498-page guidebook filled with more than 350 prompts, inspirational quotes, stories and tips anyone can follow to find their own unique path to living in flow, being more creative and feeling more joy.

The title of her book—Leap With Me—was inspired by her first poem and speaks to how much courage it can sometimes take to follow where we are intuitively feeling led.

“We are constantly being inundated with messages about what we should be doing, a lot of which is not really good for us,” said Smith. “Having a community supporting us in trusting our own inner wisdom can dramatically improve our lives.”

Wellness and creativity experts have already offered strong endorsements for Leap With Me: A Creative Path to Finding and Following Your True Voice.

“Leap With Me contains the truth about our creativity,” said Bernie Siegel, M.D., author of the International and New York Times bestseller Love, Medicine and Miracles and 19 other books. Seigel was also a leading pioneer in the use of creative visualization as an integrative cancer therapy. “When you let your thinking and intellect open to your consciousness and feelings, magic happens.”

Donna Sherman, MSW, yoga teacher and host of the podcast Sparks In Action said, “Laurie keeps a steady gaze on her own innate creativity. She skillfully supports others with compassion, wisdom and an array of effective tools.”

“Leap With Me can be a wonderful tool to learn the steps that come before discovering our life passion and calling, namely finding our flow!” said Noreen O’Sullivan, a Denmark-based educator and author of Look, Listen, Love: A Parent and Child’s Guide to Emotional Freedom Tapping. “This book is beautiful, one the world needs to experience.”

The number of people doing creative hobbies spiked during the pandemic. As we adjust to the new normal of living in a pandemic, Smith is on a quest to encourage people to keep doing hobbies that bring them joy, as well as to trust their intuition about how to stay positive.

“This whole journey has truly been a leap for me personally,” said Smith. “I’ve been amazed by how listening to our true inner voice can lower our stress and take our lives in incredible new directions.”

Laurie Smith is a meditation teacher and intuitive coach, and has been facilitating workshops on stress management, intuition and flow for more than 25 years. She has a B.A. in Communications from The University of Pennsylvania and lives near San Francisco with her two teenagers, and her husband of 25 years.

Cited research on the flow state, stress management and creativity can be found on the author's website lauriesmith.com.

Laurie Smith
Spreading Sunshine Books llc
media@lauriesmith.com
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