#510 We’re All Emperors with No Clothes

Flow Dreaming. It's a show where we talk about the power of your mind to change your world around you, to literally affect the fabric of your reality. We talk about this feeling of hope and joy and relief. And that is what being aware of your flow does. It gives you a feeling of power again in your lives. And that is what being aware of your flow does. It gives you a feeling of power again in your lives. Breathe. It is the feeling that you bring forward. It is your emotional connection that really sets the tone for what is going to be happening to you and for you. And you know that feeling when you touch it, it just spreads through you. I'm Summer McStravik, and welcome to another episode of Flow Dreaming. Hi, it's Summer. And a quick request before we jump into the show. If you like this podcast, the number one reason Flow Dream has grown is because of your reviews. People rely on your opinion, and frankly, they often misunderstand Flow Dreaming.

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Thanks for checking out Flow Dreaming this week. I gotta tell you something funny that happened to me recently. This is the inspiration for today's subject. The emperor has no clothes. Some of you are familiar with this old Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale.

It's about an emperor and two tailors.

And these tailors told the emperor, we're going to make you an outfit so fine and so beautiful and so special that anyone who is ignorant or unqualified for their jobs or in any way against you, my king, won't be able to even see these clothes. And the king bought it. He bought it hook, line, and sinker.

And the tailors made him absolutely nothing.

They pretended to dress him, pantomiming, putting on his outfit. And then the king proceeded to walk through the town in his new garments. And everyone in the town could see.

That he was naked. But nobody was willing to say anything because they didn't want to seem stupid or ignorant or unqualified for their positions.

The only one who spoke out was one small child who said, the emperor's naked look. So this story has become kind of an allegory for a couple of different things. The way that I'm using it and approaching it is to call out this dynamic that I see happening often in our lives, in the lives of coaches in particular, but in all of our lives in different ways. And it kind of goes like this. Am I just pretending? Do I think I'm wearing clothes when really I've been, you know, I bought something hook, line and sinker? Do I secretly. Am I afraid that people will see right through me? Will they know that I'm a fake and a fraud? What's going on? The emperor has no clothes. The person who's unqualified, the partner who knows that their date or their newfound love interest is going to leave them once they find out what they're really like. This is the energy I want to.

Speak to today in Flow Dreaming. What it means in your life, what it means to me.

So the funny thing I was going to tell you about is that a few weeks ago, I went to a conference for business owners and we did.

A lot of personal self development.

And one of the things that struck me the most, I think that struck all of us, is that when you get beyond all of the how to. How to run your business, how to do mailing lists, how to do da da da da da da. Underneath it all, the real reason your business grows is because of what you're generating. It's not that you make all the right decisions, you know, get all the right vendors, do all those right things. If it were just that, and everyone would just follow the same script. But we don't, and we can't. Because what really grows your business is all of these ineffable things inside you. Where you're coming from, what you believe about yourself, how you express yourself, how you get people to believe in what you are giving or not believe in what you're giving, whether or not you believe you're an emperor with no clothes or not. So I'm in this conference and, you know, it's coming up where I'm watching as we're getting deep into each other's stuff, which was really, you know, quite ballsy because we all want to look good for each other. We all want to act like, hey, I'm so great. I know what I'm doing. It's very hard to be amongst your peers saying, I really don't know this. No, I'm being driven by unseen, you know, needs and desires and wow, what's happening? It's enlightening. It's embarrassing. But if you're in the kind of work I'm in, right? This is what I draw out of my students, my clients, hopefully even you in this podcast. This is the kind of stuff I need to draw out of you. I have to have it drawn out of me. I have to be in that Experience. Know that. Experience those feelings intimately myself, if I'm willing to ask you to go through it. So I saw love coaches who couldn't open their hearts and were still shut down and closed. I saw business coaches with no clients, unable to run their own business. And I saw myself still in survival mode from my childhood, unable to fully let go into flow, release and trust that I will be okay. Right? All of this is coming to light, and I'm keeping it anonymous, by the way, so you can't tell who I'm talking about. Everybody's thinking, it's me. You're talking about me. But this was vital. This was really, really important. Because what it showed us is all the areas where we feel that we're being hypocritical, we're being a fraud. If people only really knew, right? How do I. And then, you know, how do you get into that feeling of how can I build something when I don't really know anything? And this is not limited to coaches. It just so happens that, you know, I was at a conference that had a lot of coaches. But this is you when you graduate from college and you're being hired for your first job, and you're thinking, God, they don't know that. I don't know anything. This is you 20 years later starting your job, thinking, boy, I hope you know I said I knew how to do that one computer thing, but I don't now. I've been hired and I've got two weeks to figure it out. I hope they don't find out. I hope they don't know. I hope they don't guess. A lot of us carry feelings like this about ourselves. We're not good enough.

We're a fraud.

We shouldn't be doing what we're doing. We shouldn't advertise.

We can do this.

Or should we? Are we really frauds? What I've seen over time is this. We study, we become transfixed by. We become personally engrossed with those things that are often the most difficult and challenging and trigger us the most in our own lives, right? By definition, that becomes a meaningful job, a meaningful life of purpose. If we look at poverty and we say, this makes me angry, it triggers me, it makes me upset, it makes unfair. What do you think we're probably going to do? We will probably end up. If we were in a job that had purpose, we'd probably end up working for an organization to alleviate poverty because it's our trigger. It's our thing. We've got something of our own. Wrapped up in it to the degree that we have to change it, we have to fix it. Same is true for, say, a writer, right? Will anybody like my work? Will they like my writing? Am I good enough? What if I start writing my novel? What if I take that leap? If millions of people read me, I guess I am good enough. That's what writers go through because they're possessed by it. Will I be understood? Will I connect? Will other people see and feel the things that I see and feel? Or am I alone and isolated like I think I am as a writer? Do you get it? So whenever we get into a personal or passionate career, we are typically fulfilling our own drama, encountering our own drama. And you contrast that to those careers where you feel like nothing. Like, bleh. Like, yeah, I show up and I, you know, I photocopy papers and I, you know, answer the phone, and I really couldn't give a, you know, anything about my job. I don't care. Well, I'd be willing to bet that that's a job that doesn't trigger you, doesn't give you passion, doesn't give you a sense of purpose. You're just going through the motions. When you are living in your purpose, when you are living in your passion, almost always, it means you're also pushing through your boundaries, seeing where those edges are in your life. There's a thrill in it. There's a need for it. It's a sensation of growth. So when you are saying, I'm a great real estate agent and I've never sold a house, will people know? Will they trust me? What you're really doing is you're saying, I'm working through one of the patterns in my own life of feeling good enough, of feeling like I can serve and make other people happy. Because usually. And this is where your own stuff will come up, right? This is what helped you choose that particular job and your stuff might be, oh, because people don't like me. I was always unpopular. Who would ever trust me to sell them a $200,000 house, right? That's what you enter with, because you want to solve that personally, inside you. That's why it felt like there was a pull. Because you want to reach the other side.

You want to heal that inside of yourself.

You want to heal. People do love me, actually, they do admire my ability to see into them in their lives and to know that this house perfectly matches them. I'm healing that feeling of being a loner, of being not wanted, of being not liked. People are willing to Say yes. Here's that. 200 or 400 or 800,000. Give me that house. Look at your own career right now. If you have passion in it, if it's something you really want, notice if you feel like you're faking it at all, notice where it's triggering you. Now, this is different from those careers that are triggering us because there's something kind of bad going on in them, right? Maybe you have one of those jobs where you're just sitting at a retail counter and you just can't fold another shirt. You're gonna go out of your mind, and your boss is mean and always books you the wrong weekends when you said you couldn't. And it's like it's on purpose and they're trying to drive you out, right? Okay, so all your triggers are coming up. All your stuff is coming up. It's not your purpose, but you're still there because you're working through something. If you worked through that thing, you would no longer be there. You would have quit. You'd easily have moved on. But because you're staying in it, you're still encountering it. There is this deeper kind of flow, knowledge in you. I have to get through this. I have to figure this out. I have to heal this. It's pulling on something inside of me. And so you stay working in that particular job, and then you say, well, Summer, I'm still not getting the job of my passion. Went on and got another job just like it. Because you're still healing that same thing. You're doing the 2.0 version of the healing. Maybe you'll do the 3.0 version and the 4 until it's all cleared and clean. And then you step into your life of passion and voom. There you realize it's happening again. Right? We're all in a sort of different spot along the path of this. And I guess what I'm saying is almost what you choose to do is irrelevant. Whether it's being an architect or a lawyer or being a janitor or being a teacher. The relevant part of it is whether it is pushing you into your own next phase, your own next level. Usually for us, this means clearing out a lot of stuff that blocks us, restricts us, keeps our income down, keeps our self worth down. Keeps us from being whole and close and intimate and open and vulnerable in our relationships. Right? What else do we have to work through all of this in except our careers? Yes, we can do it in our relationships, you know, with our loving partners. God help them who are willing to go through that with us. But your career, frankly, how you spend your day, it's what you do every darn day of your life for the biggest segment of your life outside of sleep. Imagine if you and your partner had to work out your stuff together every day from 9 till 5pm right? You'd probably last like, I don't know, a month. I know I'd get real sick of it real soon. And Charles would do. But work is where we end up.

Doing it, how we spend our days.

And that is why you've probably chosen whatever you're choosing to do right now, because there's something in it you are working through. Now. How do you resolve that feeling of, I'm not good enough. How can I be? I'm a hypocrite. I'm not there yet. Will anybody trust me? How do you go ahead and perform your job knowing I'm probably the worst person right now to be teaching or telling other people what to do the way that I've always done it, Right? Because there was a time years ago where I was figuring out flow dreaming, right? I come from a background that sort of molded and sculpted me to need to be in control a lot, right? I was safe. If I could empathically read my situations around me, I could be safe. And if I was in control, the more responsibility I could take, the safer I also felt. So this became too dynamic starting in early childhood. That worked really, really well for me because I could read things and read people. I could be a chameleon. I could fit in. I could, you know, I could supposedly flow with it.

I also knew that if I worked.

Really hard, if I just push, push, push and drove, drove, drove, then I would always have money. I would always have a good place to live. I would always be able to protect myself because I wasn't so protected when I was younger. Can you see how Flo would find me? Can you see how with that personality, the natural antidote would be for the universe to say, here is an ideal spokesperson. Look at this woman. Look at this girl. Look at this. This woman in her, you know, 30s, late 20s. She needs to go beyond that. What can we give her? Why don't we tell her about flow dreaming? Why don't we help her understand that there is something that can release her from that need for control, that can give her a greater control, ironically, over her life by releasing the control she now knows. I wonder if she'll be able to make that leap or if she'll always be stubborn and Work hard and too hard and get stressed out and get out of balance and control everyone around her and. And be hard to get to know and hard to be close to and cut off from everyone else. Surviving. I wonder if she can let that go, because here's what she needs to do it. Can you see how I'd be hungry for that now? Can you see how the first people who started to listen to me as I said, oh, my God, you should see what I'm experiencing. This is remodeling me. This is changing me. Can you see what they may have also heard? There was something in them saying, me too. Me too. I have that as well. Me, me, me. I have it, I have it. What are you doing? Right? Gaining a flock of people, gaining a client base, gaining admirers who are your bosses at work. It's not hard when they see you going into your stuff, when they see you transforming yourself. It's not when they see you faking it and acting like, you know, this or that or whatever. What they see instead, what they feel instead from you is the enthusiasm, the willingness. They see you stumbling through these new tools and techniques, and you're willing to share and you're saying things like, and, gosh, I cross my heart and hope that if I listen to my podcast from 10 years ago, I do actually sound like this. I hope I did. I hope what I'm extolling and sharing is, oh, my God. I have found out that there is a way to talk to the universe. I have found out there is a way to kind of transcend where you're at, to leap into this other space, to truly be heard, to not feel alone, like, it's just me fighting my way. I found this. Do you want to hear about it, too? And then look what it's doing for me. Wow. I've been applying it in my career, and this is what's happening. Oh, my gosh. I've been applying it in my partnership, and this is what's happening. And look at this. And look at that. I do. I distinctly remember myself saying, I'm your tour guide. Tour guide. I'm a little ways ahead. I've been through this before, and because of that, I've solved a few things. Check it out. Now I don't know everything. And What I said 10 years ago, I stand by today. I hope 10 years from now I have all new insights to give you. I hope some of the things I'm saying right now turn out to be flat wrong. Because if they do, it means I continued to grow. And I didn't get complacent feeling like, oh, I've reached the end all, be all know all. Why would you think you have to have reached the be all end all know all in what's making you feel passionate right now in your life. In fact, what I see is that the people who do reach the top, so called of their careers, they know everything inside and out. They've done it a billion times backwards and forwards. They are the least likely to want to talk to me about it because they've done it. They're like, that's so boring. It's just boring. I've done it, I've mastered it. And what, you want me to teach about it now? You want me to help people with it? You want me to state it over a hundred thousand times? No, thank you. I really want to go on to something else now where I can feel like my flame gets lit again. That's where I want to go. I want to go into what I don't know how to do, not what I do know. And I see this all the time. I see this in people who look like they're at the top of their craft, but they're actually not. They're like, no, I can still take it here, I can still go there with it. Now that I have the skill set, I can grow it, I can make it bigger, I can do right. You can go in any direction. I'm not saying once you master something, you have to give it up. For me. I'm getting closer to mastery of flow state. I don't know that I've mastered it yet, but now that I have some real competence with it, now that I'm able to guide and lead people there, now that I'm able to see them inside their flow, to watch people's patterns unfurl, reveal. Now that I'm able to do all that because I've worked so darn much in myself to see it. I notice it. I'm like, oh, you're experiencing what I've experienced. Oh, I've been there. Oh, I've done that. Oh, you should look at this. Oh, look at over there. And I've seen so many people's patterns that I could, I could practically write a book on them, you know. Chapter one, this pattern. Chapter two, that block. Chapter three, this pattern. Chapter four, that block. They're universal. They've become easy for me to spot. However, why am I still fired up? Because I get to play with this in different ways now. I get to make flow Dreaming a bigger phenomenon. That's kind of cool. How many people can learn about flow dreaming? I don't know. I'd like to find out. Why? Because it's a darn great way to spend my time. I feel like it's purposeful on this planet, and I know that it empowers and helps people. I can't think of a much better career that would fulfill all of those desires in me. Further, if flow dreaming wants to take me in other directions, I allow it to. You'll notice I hardly ever talk anymore about what flow is and how to flow dream and stuff. I used to just go on and on. About 10 years ago. No, today I've said I've got MI school. What's ME school? Well, flow dreaming is the first technique you learn. You learn it in the first third of the program, and after that there's another technique and more techniques and more processes. Flow dreaming is core. It's important. But I've continued to add on. Why? Because my passion draws me to find what else works. What else works. What does it take to resculpt a person's life? That's a big question that preoccupies me. What does it take to really change someone from the inside out, not just fill their head with content, not just be another course that people learn about, move through, get a diploma for, and they move on to the next one. No change in their life? No, I obsess and go deeper. How do you really change? How do you teach someone to grow their happiness? How do you teach them to invite those pieces of resistance into their life? Because it's your flow telling you something. How do you teach people how to live at a more conscious level where they start getting what they want? Big questions. My career. Flow dreaming takes me there because these are the same questions I'm trying to.

Answer for myself every day.

How do I continue to evolve? How do I get more in balance? How do I live without fear? You guys have heard me say this over the last few years. In fact, I've been saying, look, this is my thing. I'm trying to learn this year, trying to learn how to be beyond fear. Now I'm learning how to be in balance all the time. How to minimize, absolutely minimize all stress in my life to the point where I am almost never, ever stressed. I want to learn that. I want to learn how to afford more time in my life. Not financially. Financially, I could afford more time. Cancer showed me that I can cut my workload in half, have 50% more time in my life and still survive, do well, flourish even. It's not a money thing. It's a mindset thing. And I don't want cancer to have to keep telling me how to do that. I've got to figure out how to stay there on my own now, right? So this is. This will become part of my next teachings. The same thing with healing.

You've heard me talk a lot about healing lately.

And your heart and grief, these have been fascinating me. And I've. I've seen it now, and I'm studying it as the next area, the next giant tool set that we can use to transform. I've taught people how to manifest and create for years. And they bump into walls and I say, what is that wall? You should be able to manifest and create your way right through it. And they don't. And I say, oh, now I know it's your heart, it's grief, it's this, it's that. I could only help that way if I myself have had my own issues with it, have had my own problems with it. So if you are the health coach and the reason that you're obsessing about health is because you used to be bulimic and you're still fighting those urges, I applaud you. This is beautiful. This is how you will connect. If you are the love coach who says, my heart's been broken so many times that I. It's so difficult for me to trust, I applaud you. You are working through that. And you have a following of people who assume you know a little bit more than them, that they can follow. As long as you're honest and real and say, this is what I'm addressing. This is what I'm working through, then in my mind, you can give advice to anyone. Because it's not advice, it's sharing.

This is what's working for me.

This is what's not working for me. I appreciate that. I don't know about you. I appreciate that. The people I don't trust are the ones who say, I know everything.

I have the answers.

I know exactly. I know it all. I've solved it. I've solved everything. I'm perfect, right? Don't we all kind of raise our eyes and say, really? Really? And every so often, very rarely, you may find someone like that, your spiritual teacher. But mostly what we sense in others is a feeling of this person has sort of mastered something. And I trust them in that mastery. Even though they themselves are still learning. I trust that mastery in them. I can sniff it Out, Right? This is why I have ended up working with so many people who are driven, who are a type personalities, who are controlling, who are survivors. Right. I seem to attract these people because they know the things I talk about, obsess about, are the same things that they've obsessed about. And they can sense in me.

I've done a lot with it, I've worked a lot on it.

And Flo found me and said, here's your counterweight, here's your counterbalance. And they say, teach me, show me. I want to know more. And you will notice that, too, in your life. The students who are attracted to you, the people who list their houses with you, the people who hire you to come work at their company, that's what they're feeling and sensing in you. You've mastered this level or that one, or this thing or that area. Good for you. You probably have, because it's been your thing. It's where your own plumber's pipes were broken, as that old saying goes. So keep that in mind. Cut yourself some slack. You're good. The last thing I want to say on this is, you know, there's a. There's a phase, a movement right now for. For coaches. Seems like everyone is wanting to be a coach. It's an exciting career. I've even slipped into calling myself a coach. I always used to call myself a mentor or a teacher, and people would say, oh, you mean like a coach? So now I say, yeah, like a coach. I do see, though, a lot of us, a lot of other people get into coaching because they really are working through their own things. And coaching is a beautiful way to work through your own things. There's always a point, though, where you need to ask yourself, am I working through this for me, or am I working through it so I can lead others? And it's nothing to stress about. It's just a thought. It's something you have to encounter and know. And that's where people decide, yes, this.

Is my career or no, but this.

Was the journey that I needed to take. It was really only about me, after all.

Keep that in mind. Little tidbit.

Okay, we're going to go to a break. When we get back, we're going to do a little flow dreaming around this idea of feeling comfortable in your own clothing. So stay with me for more Flow Dreaming. Hi.

It's summer, but on break, and I know that some of you are still wondering, what is flow dreaming and what is MI school?

Because I refer to both of these.

Quite a bit in My podcast, MI School, is a transformational program. It's a gorgeous and deeply revealing, empowering online school worldwide where I teach you how to remodel your life in any way you choose, using the technique of flow dreaming, as well as a bunch of other deeply powerful life changing processes. So me School is either enrolling or it's accepting names onto the wait list. And that means that I'm accepting students who work, work with me for the year and you can learn how to do what I do in life.

The way I think, the way I.

Build things, make things, heal things. Everything I talk about, you will learn directly from me how to do. You're going to create some amazing things. My me schoolers. Their lives change way beyond the norm. And you don't even have to be a superstar when you go in.

Some of you are, and you're ready.

To go bigger, play in that bigger field.

And some of you are just saying, hey, help. What's next? Where should I go?

And both are fine.

Both are great if you're ready to go big.

But you know that you need to deepen your own spiritual practice and your personal growth, because that's where it all comes from, right? Then this is where you need to be. Your life only grows as big as you do. So here's what to do. Go over to flowdreaming.com and click on MI School. And during these enrollment periods, you can actually set up a free phone call with me or my staff and we'll talk about it.

Is it a fit?

Is it interesting? During wait list times, we just put you on a list of people who've expressed interest, so we can notify you as soon as the doors open. All right.

I look forward to hearing from you.

And even more to getting to know you as one of my personal students in me school. Now let's get back to the episode.

Welcome back.

Let's do some flow dreaming together.

We're going to close our eyes briefly. We're going to get into this magnificent flowing state where we release control. Boy, do we release control.

So if you're new to flow dreaming, it's not meditation.

It's very emotional practice. Go get my free how to Flow Dream kit. Download it from my site.

And for everyone else, we're just gonna get started. Go ahead and close your eyes. Take a nice deep breath.

A yogic.

Breath in through your nose and exhaling through your mouth. And then take another. And this time, as you exhale.

Allow.

Your shoulders to drop on the outflow and roll your neck and Release your jaw and relax your brow. You're going into flow and your body wants to feel loose and relaxed, relaxed at rest, releasing your mind, your heart and your consciousness into flow. You feel yourself releasing.

As if you.

Were a white bird on a windowsill, flying up and off into the bright blue sky. And you begin to shimmer and change colors, noticing how you become whatever colorful.

Being.

To feel yourself, to truly be. You fly, you float, you swirl. You feel how the air currents lift you up. It's effortless to be in flow, effortless to let go.

And release.

You circle lazily in the sky.

Before.

You find yourself landing. Landing on an island, a speck of sand, beautiful greenery in the middle of an ocean of light and flowing energy. You dig your toes into the sand, warm and soft, Recognizing that you found your oasis, your point of safety, your own place. And you allow yourself to think.

To.

Dream and ask, what am I doing with my days, with my time? Am I a leader? Am I a master? Do I know what I'm doing or don't I? How does this make me feel? Does it really matter? Do I have to put on pretences?

Do I have to act like a certain thing? Who said I had to? Was that just me? Did I make up in my head.

That I should look or appear a certain way or have a certain mastery? I wonder if anyone else really cares.

What if they don't?

What if they're trusting and sensing something different inside me? What if what they're sensing is my focus, my yearning, my conviction, my commitment to learn, grow, explore and expand in.

Whatever area I may have chosen for.

My career, the way I spend my days? What if that's what they sense? What if that's what they should sense? What if that's what I'm sensing in them? Their preoccupation is there because it's their passion. It's what they didn't know the most and needed to learn the most. It's what they wanted the most, wanted to achieve the most. Isn't that what makes anyone stellar? That desire? That's who I really am. And that is what I'm really doing.

That feels so good, that feels so joyful in my chest. I can feel it again. Like little birds hatching, birds of joy, birds of light.

That's who I am.

I remember that now.

Thank you, Flo. Thank you for reminding me. Now you feel this scene begin to dissolve, this beautiful island and oceans of light as you find yourself returning.

Returning.

From your daydream, from your flow dream. And you open your eyes.

And there we are at the end of another episode. Hope you all enjoyed that so much.

And my love to you all and.

I will see you all again next.

Week, same time, same place for more Flow Dreaming. All right, that wraps up our episode today.

But before you go, two things.

One, you can get the Flow Dreaming app in the Google, Amazon or iTunes app stores. It allows you to search and sort.

To mark your favorite episodes.

It's completely free to download, and it gives you access to the latest several dozen of these episodes, as well as to the Premium episode library, where there are more than 400 episodes that date back to 10 years. The app's free, so go download it now at Flow Dreaming in the App Store on your mobile device. And last, if you love my show.

I'm going to give a shout out.

To my mom's podcast. It's called the Dear Venus show and she's an amazing intuitive and a medium and super, super funny. Search the words Dear Venus in your podcast directory or online and that way you can find her too.