#478: SPOTLIGHT: Eve Hepburn

#478: Eve Hepburn 

October 20, 2026

A Backbeat of Community

Question for Eve: 

What has SURPRISED you about the conditions under which you feel you are in a "flow state" and operating most in alignment with your true self?   What allows that version of you to emerge?

Eve's Response: 

Until a few years ago, I figured I was a 'left-brain' flow-state kind of lass. I revelled in science, structure, analysis - and writing, teaching and speaking about my research, as well as gently teasing out intellectual arguments with friends, put me in the most wonderful state of exquisite challenge. 

But something inside me has shifted - most recently, just a few days ago when I was on a retreat in Portugal - and I no longer believe that flow is limited to one aspect of or being, or indeed any particular side of our brain. Instead, it goes deeper than that.

The change that occurred within me last week was my re-discovery of the wonder of music. Not just listening to music (which I love), or dancing to music (which gives me such joy), but becoming the music - allowing it to sweep through my body, filling my heart, tingling my lungs, and escaping through my vocal chords or my fingers. Two days ago, I composed my first piece of music on the piano since I was 15. Yesterday, I had my first ever singing lesson. Today, I sang for an hour before I climbed out of bed. And when I allow music in, my Eve-ness begins to dissolve into the melodies, the harmonies, the vibrations, the pulse of the earth, the one-ness of our existence. High-falutin stuff, maybe. But as simple as a baby's lullaby. 

So what truly surprises me about the conditions of flow? Perhaps that it's not restricted to a certain part of me or way of being. Instead, I now genuinely believe I can find flow in any situation, any context, any mindset (both left brain or right brain) - when I allow myself to open up to novelty, vulnerability, curiosity, connection and wonder. That there are so many pathways to feeling alive. And that our privilege (and sometimes challenge) is suspending fear, self-criticism and judgement, and simply allowing ourselves to find out what they are.