Three Tidy Life Saving Tactics For When Flow Becomes Addictive

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The very first time I can remember experiencing flow state I was in a rather precarious position. I was all sprawled out, like an octopus on ice.  At least, from the perspective of the horse, I imagine that is exactly how I looked.  I was a jumble of limbs and various pieces of horse tack strewn across the cold, black, icy ground with my back pinned against the corral fence.  She was in full rear as she looked down at me.  I saw the panicked whites of her eyes, her nostrils flared, her breath a stream of vapour erupting into the freezing cold air.  


It was kind of hypnotic, the way the light from the tack shed turned her body into a menacing yet graceful black silhouette.  Up, up, up she rose onto her hind legs, her front legs dangling in the air directly overhead like two spears.  It seamed to take a unfathomably long time for the rope that bound her halter to the fence to snapped tight.  Once it did, there was no where for her to go but down, and down, was precisely where I was.  


In the tenths of seconds that followed I somehow melted into the wooden slats at my back as her hooves grazed my cheek and chest.  She tried everything in her power to avoid me. Her broad barrel chest and long neck straining against the fence that pulled her face relentlessly forward.  I somehow rolled onto my left hip and pasted my legs to the ground like that iconic image of Princess Laya chained to Jabba The Hutt.  


The horse touched down, each hoof squarely in the the centre of each of my femurs.  Then she preformed some sort of kinaesthetic voodoo to levitate back into the air as my sister yanked on the tail end of the chain knot freeing the horse and allowing me time to scamper through the tiny gap in the corral fence.  Safely on the other side I finally screamed out in terror.  


Then I see my mom is running through the snow wearing nothing but socks and I was whisked off to the hospital.  I was still in shock and that bafflement only grew as the doctor explained that I had no broken bones, no significant soft tissue injuries, just two monster bruises and a little nerve damage.  The horse and I, in those hand full of seconds, entered into flow state and that is what made all the difference.

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