Finding my Flow in 2026…

I’m back!

Nearly two years have passed… And so much has happened and changed in that time. Good and bad. Life.

A quick recap on what’s happened:

I moved house (a month after I wrote my last blog), I made a new home and community of special friends here in Winchester, I met a lovely man (Paul), and I had a number of adventures and holidays with loved ones (Tenerife, Switzerland, Seville, Marrakesh, Menorca, Portugal and Scotland – many times!).

Those were the happy moments… the sad and uncertain moments are/were caring for my parents. Mum got a diagnosis of Dementia and Dad had a stroke last March, and after battling hard over 6 months, he died in November 2025. As a friend said, I’ve now joined a club that no-one wants to be a member of. It has been a really tough time and it continues to be – but I feel so well supported, loved and I am just so grateful for my life.

2026 offers me a blank canvas – a year of healing and hope, joy and adventure. It also happens to be the year I turn 50! So, it feels very significant in many ways.

FLOWING IN 2026…

I’ve chosen the word FLOW as my word of the year… Last year’s word was COURAGE and I wrote a blog about what this meant to me last October. You can read it here, if you’re interested.

Why did I choose the word FLOW this year?

Flow is a word to guide how I focus my attention, attitude and approach to life, work, projects and relationships. It will help me prioritise my time and keep me accountable to myself and my commitments…

The Flow state was first coined by the late Hungarian psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi in the ’70s… And there’s lots of exciting neuroscience at play when we’re in this state.

In this article in The Guardian, they say: “flow is most likely to occur when we find the perfect balance between our current abilities and the difficulty of the activity at hand. If a task is too easy, it fails to absorb our attention, so we become distracted, and our thoughts may wander to other preoccupations. If it is too hard, we start to feel stressed by the task itself. It is only when we meet the sweet spot in between that we find the optimum level of engagement – and all the pleasant feelings that come with it.“

Flow is a state where our nervous system is neither stuck in fight or flight, nor fully in rest and digest – we’re dynamically between the two states. Neuroscience tells us that in the flow state, stress hormones quieten while neurochemicals like dopamine and endorphins increase – helping us feel focused, motivated and deeply engaged. It’s a powerful state for creativity, problem-solving and meaningful productivity, AND happiness according to Csikszentmihalyi.

And as I’m taking on some big projects this year, including, running New York marathon on my 50th birthday (my 10th marathon!) and finishing my Dad’s book – this is a state that will help me in these and other pursuits.

So, I will be exploring all the different ways to find flow – physically, mentally and emotionally – and will share my discoveries and experiences here on this blog…

I’ve named Friday as my day of the week to find flow through writing… so, if you’re interested, I’ll see you back here next Friday 🙂

Happy Friday! x