Building the author inside you is a balancing act. While it is important to build craft and business skills, there comes a time you need to build something different. I noticed that most of my focus has been on ensuring I take the necessary steps to lay the foundation of my author career. Although I am grateful for the special authors who walked alongside me in this journey; I realised I have lacked mentors to teach me how to make my body work for me and not against me.
In the book Finding Flow; Flip the script on Stress by Nicky Rowbotham, I recognised that many of the physical manifestations of my stress highlighted areas I can manage differently to what she calls white knuckling through.
I started reading this book while I was in Port Elizabeth in the last days of my father’s life and I recognised some symptoms the author mentioned in a series of helpful checklists. As I sat hunched over my computer, I caught myself holding my breath, an instinctive response which mammals use when there is a predator lurking nearby. In nature, this response minimises the chances of the predator’s hearing you breathing. But neither deadlines at work, nor harsh email and not even the circle of life that robs us of our parents is a life-threatening situation, even though it may feel like it.
I realise most times some excuses that I and many authors have made in the past are not because of excessive workloads, load shedding or many other logical and fair reasons we give for lack of progress, it is because we have bought into coping mechanisms that reduce our resilience and in doing that can paralyse us. Some of these coping mechanisms are adding the stress cycle and fear that robs us of our mobility where it matters.
Her insights into many human stress responses made me realise why so many authors, when even faced with logical choices, struggle to take action. That feeling of “Leave me alone”, which I recognise in myself and the words that some authors who are on this journey with me resonated as I worked through the pages of this book.
Finding Flow is a helpful blend of personal experiences, science and checklists to help move the book from the head to the heart. If you, like me, are juggling tasks while you work through your purpose, this book is an essential manual to finding your flow.
This is what the publisher says about this book:
Exhausted?
Strung out?
Shackled in your own invisible straitjacket of stress?
Seventy per cent of us spend most of our day in a state of stress, with our nervous systems in a position of fight, flight or freeze. Modern day stress has become pervasive in all aspects of our lives through constant pressure, the weight of perceived expectations and the drive to be always on.
Many live with an energy and nervous system that feels like a tightly clenched fist, rather than an easeful, gently unfurling hand. Staying shackled in a state of overwhelm and stress has far-reaching consequences on our health. We often only pay attention when illness strikes, having tuned out to all the messages our bodies were sending us along the way. Health whispers until one day it screams. Let’s not wait for the scream.
But how do we do this?
By having a nervous system in flow.
Everything we do transforms energy in our bodies into something supportive or destructive to us, emotionally or physically. What we need is a more easeful, beneficial energy in our lives.
In this book you will learn: What’s truly behind your stress, how stress impacts your energy, hormones and nervous system, how to move your nervous system into a state of flow, and how to make choices that support your energy, by living in harmony with your body.
Full of practical solutions, wisdom and strategies, 7 Steps to Finding Flow is your guide to lighten the load that stress places on us, and how to move through it with ease when it lands.
We can’t avoid stress, but we can deal with it differently and access better health, energy and balance. Nicky Rowbotham’s 7 Steps to Finding Flow will help you move from being overwhelmed and locked in by stress to a more easeful, resilient and aligned life. Let’s flip the script on stress.
Kim Vermaak is an entrepreneur, published author, marketer and coach based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Kim helps self-published authors to move from being hobbyists to full-time businesses.
She served a term of office as the Vice Chair of the Johannesburg Business Women’s Association and is a former winner of the Regional Start of Business of the Year. Kim is also a former Cosmopolitan Mover of the Months and a recipient of the Women of Wonder “I Conquer Awards.”
After working in branding for almost all of her adult life and helping hundreds of brand managers and event coordinators build customer relationships, she craved creative something that would create a legacy for her family. When South Africa had its first series of power cuts, Kim used the power of stories to create stories for her frightened daughter. This was the start of her storytelling skill set, but she only wrote and published her first stories when a friend introduced her to the world of self publishing.
Kim is the publisher of a medieval fantasy range of books and an author of self-help publishing books.
Kim offers some free training for authors on her YouTube Channel.
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