Searching for a Key into Flow

This is the first installment in The Door Opens, a series exploring the story and practice of relational imagination. Each post traces part of my journey with the question: What is the key that unlocks creative energy and potential? Along the way, I’ll invite you to reflect on your own creative path, too.

About twenty years ago, I caught sight of a question, and I’ve been chasing it ever since.

What is the key that unlocks creative energy and potential?

I wonder what your answer might be, if we were sitting at a table together, chatting over lattes. What unlocks creative energy and potential for you?

For me, the roots of this question go back even further than the question itself. It showed up less as a question and more as an internal wail: WHY??

I’d finally been cast as the lead in a high school production—Our Town—and I was floundering. My kind-hearted acting coach offered me extra sessions, hoping I could shake loose from the tight grip of overthinking. Again and again, we ran my monologues. Each time, I’d peer hopefully into the empty auditorium where he sat, mid-row, three-quarters of the way back. Inevitably, he’d shake his head.

No, the magic hadn’t happened. I was acting like my character, Emily, but I hadn’t quite become her.

Yes, I was saying all the right words. I had performed all of my blocking. I was even doing my best to think all the right thoughts. The trouble is, wanting to let go and actually letting go are two different things.

Maybe “letting go” isn’t even the right phrase.

There’s an invisible bridge inside ourselves, one that appears in creative moments. If we can spot it—and cross it—something magical happens. We’re freed from the part of ourselves that constantly monitors and evaluates, and we can create something beyond our own doing. This is where inspired acting, exceptional musical performance, and genius art-making happen. It’s where writers go when they say it “felt like the story was writing itself.” Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi studied this experience and named it “Flow.”

I understand why Csikszentmihalyi chose a verb—flow is active, alive, embodied. But for me, finding flow has been less about practicing an action and more about mapping my way to a particular place. Too often, the doorway to that place felt impossibly hard to find, let alone open.

I felt sure that if I found the key, I’d unlock untapped potential—not only on stage, but in writing, art, music-making, even daily life.

When a question grabs you like this, it’s natural to start collecting clues.

What am I missing?

Where might I look?

My repeated failure to achieve flow as an actor was maddening, yet I refused to give up. Acting well required finding the very state of mind I sought. And I saw other actors step into it all the time. Surely continued training would eventually yield results?

Every once in a while, persistence paid off. One day in college, I shocked myself—and my fellow actors—by delivering an inspired performance in rehearsal. I showed up exhausted to the black box theatre. My peer-director pushed and prodded me past my limits, and something cracked. I was no longer pretending to be a furious Beatrice. I was fully out of my head and grounded in my enraged body.

For months afterward, I tried to retrace my steps. Was anger the key? (I hoped not—how could it help in scenes of grief, laughter, or wonder?)

I kept asking questions, kept exploring, kept stumbling into moments when I longed for more flow. Each step further convinced me that opening the doorway to flow was not a luxury, but essential.

After college, I began teaching youth actors, and I saw the problem in a new way. During theatre games, students would lose themselves, sparking with creative energy and unexpected ideas. Their improv scenes were insightful, hilarious, alive. But then they’d step on stage for dress rehearsals, and freeze. Panic flashed across their faces as they tried to perfectly remember staging and lines, followed by crushing disappointment when they fell short of their own standards.

Something was missing. First, I’d spotted it in myself. Now, I could see it in my students. I suppose I could have taught actors to give solid performances without helping them achieve flow. But to me, the performance wasn’t the point. Teaching this skill—or was it mapping this path?—was my “why.” I didn’t yet know what unlocking flow would make possible, but I knew the collective impact would be meaningful.

I researched theatres around the country to see who else might be asking these questions. Piven Theatre Workshop caught my attention with its improvisational approach. I looked deeper and ultimately moved from Portland to Chicago to see the work for myself. As an intern, I apprenticed with long-time story theatre teachers and took story theatre classes myself. I learned a canon of games designed to invite participants to let go of the outside world and enter the story space. From there, we stepped in as characters, world-builders, tale-spinners. While inside the story, I often stumbled into surprising insights—about others: “Oh, that’s why they might act that way,” and about myself: “No wonder I’m so fiercely committed to that.”

Most classes began in a circle with a simple game. At first, the facilitator side-coached, guiding us from one game to another. Once we found our rhythm, the facilitator stepped back, and whoever had the focus could swap games. Soon, the rules fused and there was no clear “right” or “wrong.” When the facilitator sensed we were ready, she called, “follow the follower.” At this point, no one was in charge, but everyone was responsible—fully present, fully playing their part in creating whatever emerged between us.

In those moments at Piven, when the room shifted into “follow the follower,” I realized I’d stumbled into the very key I’d been chasing. Flow wasn’t only a private breakthrough—it was something that could open between people, something we could step into together.

As you can imagine, the story continues—and I’m looking forward to sharing more of it with you—but I’d like to pause here for today.

Let’s return to our earlier question. For you, what is the key that unlocks creative energy and potential? If you’re not sure, that’s completely understandable.

Maybe instead, ask yourself this: Can you remember a time when flow showed up for you? A time when you crossed that invisible bridge—creating, grounded, present? Maybe it happened on a stage, in conversation, while painting, running, or cooking.

What if, this week, you paid special attention, looking for a flicker of flow? When it shows up, savor it. Then afterward, reflect lightly, without judgment. Notice what sparked it, how it felt, and why it mattered.

What might you carry forward on your own creative journey?

Want to keep exploring?
Here’s how to navigate this creative landscape:

✴︎ Listen in:
Creative Lift

✴︎ Subscribe:
Illumineering with Naomi Kinsman

✴︎ Join the Community:
Creative Campfire