the FLOmethod: why your Brain is LYING to you (AND HOW TO ACTUALLY CHANGE)

I spent years trying to change and understand myself the "normal" way. Years and years of therapy, willpower, journaling, self-help books, EMDR, hypnosis, meditation, affirmations, you name it. Some of it helped. A lot of it didn't, at least not in the long run and to create permanent changes. And every time I "failed" or regressed I felt worse. I felt I was never going to change and be stuck in that version of myself forever.

A disclosure that maybe a lot of people don't know about me: I had an anxiety disorder and agoraphobia (fear of being alone or in open spaces) from 2021 until a few months ago. How bad was it, you may wonder? Around six months ago there were days I couldn't be alone, and if I was (because my husband needed to go to work, for example) I spent the whole day on my couch, in my cocoon corner with items and distractions that made me feel safe. And I spend the day constantly having panic attacks and feeling paralyzed. 
Years of not being able to walk more than one block away from my home, drive, go out by myself, hang out with friends, or even visit my family (they all live in Chile and I live in California).

Managing work and my creativity was hard, to say the least, but in all that time I started obsessing over neuroscience and how the brain works. I thought (genuinely at that moment) that I was the only one struggling this much and I couldn't believe the rest of the world and people could live such normal lives and do such normal things. Sometimes I couldn't understand how in the past I was also able to do that! I not only had a "normal" life, I drove everywhere, moved to a new country by myself, and I used to travel all over the world! (I visited over 20 different countries.) Now I could barely walk more than one block! For my healing process, ADHD with its hyperfocus quality was a curse and a superpower. But then I learned something that changed everything:

YOUR CONSCIOUS BRAIN IS NOT THE ONE RUNNING THE SHOW.

Neuroscience research tells us that roughly 95% of our daily decisions, reactions, and behaviors come from the subconscious mind. Just to give you some context in simple words and in a simplified explanation: from when you're born until your adolescence/teenage years, your SUBCONSCIOUS mind is running the show. It acts like a sponge absorbing information without discrimination, categories, or filters.

Once you reach your adolescence/teenage stage, your CONSCIOUS mind (AKA your frontal lobe, the rational part of your brain) starts working more, and starts processing and analyzing that information. Hence why teenage years are so hard and why they become more "rebellious." Your brain is finally questioning the information it's been absorbing for years.

Now, as an adult, your rational brain (the part reading this right now) is awake or aware for about 5% of the time. Just to explain how mind-blowing this is:

In simple words, if your brain is a car, your subconscious brain (that sponge that absorbed everything) is at the wheel driving 95% of the time. Your CONSCIOUS brain (the logical one) only drives for 5%.

THAT IS INSANE!

That means that most of our behaviors, decision-making, patterns, etc. are ruled by a part of our brain that's currently dormant and that was built by your environment, life experiences, and trauma.

So then, when you want to make a change in your life and try to do it through willpower or positive thinking alone, it's an almost impossible task, and who's to blame for your failures? Not yourself. You're basically arguing and trying to convince a car and its mechanics to change when you don't even have access to it!

So one thing or one tool that everybody can access that works to directly change or talk to this part: it's to go underneath the conscious mind.

This is where deep meditation and self-hypnosis come to play. This is what I learned, researched, and investigated for so long.

This is the neuroscience version, not the "movie" or mystical version of this process. When you enter a deeply relaxed state, your brain shifts into slower wave activity, and something remarkable happens: the critical, defensive part of your brain steps back, and you get direct access to the subconscious layer. Simple as that.

Stanford researchers have confirmed that specific brain regions (the ones governing emotional regulation, self-awareness, and behavior) show measurable changes during hypnotic states.

And this is the part that blew my mind and literally changed my life: when you vividly imagine an experience in that state, your brain activates many of the same neural pathways as if you were actually living it. Meaning your brain BELIEVES you're actually living that situation.

The brain doesn't fully distinguish between a real memory and a deeply imagined one. That means you can rehearse a new version of yourself: not just think about it, but neurologically practice it, until those pathways strengthen and the old patterns quiet down.

In simple words: you can rewire yourself.

That's not magic. That's what's known as NEUROPLASTICITY. It means your brain is plastic, malleable, adaptable, and any change is possible. Whoever said people can't change was fundamentally wrong. People and brains can absolutely change, it just requires some work and good tools to do it. And most importantly: WILLINGNESS to do it. You cannot force change on yourself or others, you need to want it and be willing to do the work. That's step 1.

Now, here is where the FLOmethod comes in, my own method where I used my own name and the association with the word "flow." I used to tell myself "I'm the Flo that flows" hahaha.

I started applying these simple concepts to myself. I tried different deep meditations and hypnosis therapies, and I found my own "script" to quickly enter into this deep meditative state, where I could connect with my subconscious.

In this state, I talked to it, I ran scenarios, and created a whole world and pathways to access different parts of my mind. I connected with memories, processed them, worked with somatic release, connected to my body, and tried hundreds of different ways on myself. To be honest, it was a trip lol.

But it provoked a mind-blowing result: In a week I was driving again. In a few weeks I was walking with Arlo, my dog, farther than I'd ever been! I ventured outside my bubble and rented and opened an art studio at the beach. I started doing art shows. I visited my family (and my dad!) in Chile after not seeing him and many family members in 5 years! That happened in January of this year.

This change in myself wasn't only based on that, I'm not going to lie. I was in therapy, I started taking SSRI meds and medication for my ADHD. The medication and therapy helped a lot. They reduced my panic attacks (at some point I was having them twice a day, every day!), my PTSD, depression, and dysregulated nervous system.

But they didn't solve my fear of showing and expressing myself (something that can really affect an art career that depends on you sharing!), my agoraphobia or reluctance to go out and drive, my money issues and debt I accumulated from lack of being able to work full hours or manage my money. If you have or know someone that has ADHD, it's basically a lack of dopamine, your reward system, basically your "motivation." So my hack to compensate that dopamine used to be shopping or buying cute things or decorating my space.

But when I started applying my own method to myself, every day in the morning, the changes were insane! In the sense that they were so fast I was actually starting to believe in miracles (I'm not a religious person but I was seriously thinking on becoming one). I started sharing this method and what happened to me with family and people around me, and I had volunteers (my guinea pigs!) asking me to try it on them. We had amazing results, it was crazy!

So after talking to myself and doubting about this, I decided to open and share this method officially to the public. If I can help a person that's currently feeling like I did, that there's no hope, and produce any change in them and their behaviors, I'll be the happiest person in the world. To be fully honest, I'm not that altruistic. I'm not sharing my method just to hopefully help others, I do it also for me. I do it for that version of myself that at some point thought living was too hard and maybe not worth it. Every time I teach and share this method with somebody else, I feel I'm traveling to the past, to that Old Flo and saying to her: hang on, keep fighting, I swear it's possible.

This is what the FLOmethod is built on. Not a theory. Not a certification. A lived experiment: backed by science, adapted through art, and refined through years of obsessing over how the mind actually works.

If you want to know more, keep visiting this space for new entries!

Or if you're ready to go deeper and experience this method for yourself: the 1:1 Coaching FLOmethod is now open!

Flo out!