Practical Magic - Finding your Flow: Where Discipline and Surrender meet

Freya Blom
Oct 28
5 min read

Happy October!

Good to have you here. I hope the gentle move into autumn is proving welcome and cosy. This month is an interesting one. After the flurry of restarting in September and before the slide into the holidays begins, I often find October provides a little bubble of reflective time that contains both the momentum of a new season and the insights that come with a more inward lifestyle.

This month's Practical Magic is on theme for autumn/fall. It is all about the relationship between being and doing and how the way we blend them has a direct impact on how much flow we can experience. I hope you enjoy it!

Finding your flow: where discipline and surrender meet

Are you trying to force yourself to do something - and then judging yourself for not sticking to it?

Do you find it hard to do the things you think you should be doing?

You’re not alone. One of the biggest challenges people face is finding balance in how they spend their time.

Many of my clients arrive with heavy self-beliefs about being lazy, disorganised, or lacking self-discipline. They describe themselves as procrastinators or inefficient. These self-judgments don’t just waste time - they drain energy and erode confidence.

So, instead of pushing harder, I invite clients to reflect on what balance actually works for them. The goal isn’t to do what they think they “should” be doing, or to create some kind of 50/50 rule, but to accept who they truly are and how they naturally work.

Breaking news: adults need structured and free time - just like kids do!

In our mechanistic, productivity-obsessed culture, it’s easy to abandon our real needs in favour of external markers of success.

We need consistent enough levels of sleep and meals and movement to stay grounded - and we also need enough unstructured time to be able to relax, play, learn, and simply be in the moment.

Just as a secure and reliable attachment to their caregivers gives a child the confidence to explore, having enough safety and structure in our lives gives us the freedom to expand, create, and take healthy risks.

The dance between discipline and surrender

Both discipline and surrender are essential. The trouble is, most of us lean too far to one side.

If you’re self-employed or creative, for instance, variety and novelty can feel like oxygen. They are part of your creative process - and that’s a good thing. But when your personal and business foundations are neglected, a low hum of worry and uncertainty can creep in and over time build into a level of stress that can overshadow and pressure your desire and ability to stay creative.

On the other hand, if you spend all your time locked to your desk doing only routine tasks, the parts of you that crave novelty will at some point come knocking and start to derail your schedule. This inner rebellion is often accompanied by either resentment of anything routine or indeed grief at the lack of free time and relaxation you are experiencing.

Essentially, when we are out of balance, we get stressed, because an opposing part of us is being oppressed. Getting into creative flow means learning to live in a way that honours both the need for stability and support, and the need for freedom, play, and spontaneity.

When I first started my business, I was all surrendered - completely free-floating. It felt exciting, but also terrifying. I had no grounding, no sense of what truly supported me. Learning to care for the less interesting parts of my business and creating structure around those essentials and fundamentals taught me that structure isn’t the opposite of freedom - it’s what generates and makes genuine freedom sustainable.

Discipline dominance

If your life is dominated by rigidity and routine, you may be feeling restricted, or disconnected, or resistant. You might be already in rebellion, finding yourself avoiding anything that feels like work because your inner self is crying out for space and spontaneity. In addition, Neuroscience tells us your brain runs on two clocks: the Chronological Clock which tracks linear time and routines (your body clock), and the Experiential Clock - which tracks emotion, novelty, and meaning. High-meaning, high-emotion experiences stretch time; routine and low-meaning moments fly past.

Unchecked surrender

Without a healthy level of structure and commitment to your needs, life can feel chaotic, and that can result in us feeling ungrounded and overwhelmed. You might end up in a kind of freeze state - guilty about not doing enough, yet too scattered to know where to start. This is the time to remember that structure is supposed to act as a safety net, not smother us or feel like a life sentence. We need enough safety and certainty in the right areas, to feel genuinely free in the others.

True freedom only exists when our foundations are cared for.

In my work (and in my personal experience) I’ve learned there’s no single formula for balance - it’s different for everyone, and it changes over time. But there are some essentials we all need as humans:

Physical movement
Connection with nature
Community and belonging
Time alone
Time with others
Times of deep focus
Times of deep presence
Rest
Nourishment
A healthy, supportive environment

Our job is to take responsibility for all of our needs, not just our favourite ones:

To deeply respect the importance and impact of the uninteresting yet important tasks for our wellbeing
To deeply respect the importance and impact of unstructured time as fundamental to our wellbeing
To deeply respect the importance and impact of rest as the ultimate “non-productive” generative force it truly is.

The Yin and Yang of life

When we talk about structure and surrender, we’re really talking about wholeness - honouring both sides of what makes us human. One side may feel more natural or enjoyable, but it’s only satisfying and possible because the other exists.

There is a time and place to be disciplined and committed, and there is another time and place to let loose and see what happens. The key is to set yourself up for success by understanding where structure, commitment and discipline is genuinely useful in the context of your own unique life and creative process, and where and when you could surrender and be more free.

Practical Magic exercise:

1. Examine your structures

Where are you currently disciplined or committed?
How well is that working for you?
Do your structures genuinely serve your goals, priorities and wellbeing - or just your sense of what you “should” do?

Check whether you are acting out any hangovers from previous roles, family habits, or internalised “shoulds”.

2. Examine your surrender

Where, and how often, do you allow yourself to be free-flowing or spontaneous?
How well is that serving you?
Does your level of surrender genuinely serve your goals, priorities and wellbeing - or is it just your sense of what you “should” do?

Check whether you are acting out any hangovers from previous roles, family habits, or internalised “shoulds”.

3. Rebalance

The goal is to have practices that are created consciously, aligned with your values, honour all of your needs, which feel good in your body and are achievable and sustainable.