#579: Lessons in Elegance (M.E. School)
24 Sept 2018 · 56 min
Summer McStravick explores elegance across thinking, writing, music, and relationships, then coaches a caller named Sage through a career decision. The episode includes a five-minute guided meditation on living in flow.
Chapters
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.
Breathe.
I'm Summer McStravik and welcome to another episode of Flow Dreaming.
Welcome to Flow Dreaming. Hi, everyone, it's Summer. We have another episode for you today about life. Living energy, emotion, living just a really good life, and using everything around us, everything in our power to make it so. This is episode number 579, Lessons in Elegance. And again, as we've been doing in this special series recently, these are more lessons from MI School. Again, sharing with you some of the topics and the ideas and the thoughts that we go deep into and really develop over the course of our time in MI School. MI School, by the way, is enrolling, and I am welcoming in you as students. And we're starting to kind of. Well, not starting to, but we are. We're working together. Working together multiple times a month, learning and going deeper. And if anything I say in this show or in past shows has really spoken to your heart and you think I might be the teacher for you, the coach for you, the mentor for you, please, please, please go ahead and go to my website, flow dreaming.com and set up a time to talk with me. And if you don't make it to my website, then just email me directly summerlowdreaming.com and I'm really, really happy to talk with you and kind of get a read on what's going on in your life and figure out if MI School is something that would be a fit. Okay, so that's my big news right now. Me school. Me school. Me school. The other news is that I am actively searching for talent for inflowradio.com. this is the broadcast network, live streaming, Internet radio broadcasting, as well as podcasting. Not even live shows, but if you just want a podcast and you want to fit in a family of other hosts who think like you, feel like you reach the same audience as you, then please, please go to inflowradio.com and send me a note about being a host. I am looking for that, too. So let's jump in. Now that I have those two little bits of detail out of the way. And I'll tell you, if I stumble over my words a little more today than normal, it's because I took my kids to Disneyland last night. Yes, Indeed. We went to Disneyland. They have a Halloween special evenings there for a couple of months each year.
And.
And so we went. And as a result, we all didn't get home and in bed till around one in the morning because that's Disneyland for you. We live a little ways away, so I am tracking, but not 100%. So caveat. Caveat. But today, let's get to our topic in hand. Lessons in elegance. What does that mean? Why do we think about elegance? What does that mean to us in our lives? Why is it an energy that we should even think about or factor in or strive for? What's it like when we feel it? What's it like when we don't feel it in our lives? We're going to zero in on this. So in MI school, we talk a lot about how to create ease and flow in our lives. Ease, flow, good luck, synchronicity, perfect timing, divine timing, lucky breaks. The idea is that the universe has, you know, multiple choices at any given moment. Just like if you put 52 cards in your hand and you pulled one randomly, you might get a king or an ace, or you might get a 2 or a 3, but with a little intention. Say you flip the cards over and you can see those cards. You can pick the ace and the king all the time. And suddenly what became, what seemed very, very difficult becomes not difficult at all. But you have to switch the perspective like that. You have to shift into a different mindset, a different way of understanding things. That is how you get to see the cards happen. So in MI school, we flip those cards around so we can see what's really happening. And then we can start to pick the kings and the queens and the aces and all the good, all the good, all the good high cards, I guess depends on the game you're playing, but you know what I'm saying? One of the high cards in our lives is this sense that life is not a struggle. Life is not a series of brick walls. Life is not hitting your head over and over and over. Struggling, striving, trying for something, waking up sleepless in the middle of the night, worrying about something, waking up first thing in the morning sweating about money or how am I going to pay the bills this month, or my kid needs something and I can't buy it for them. All of that is not living right. That's surviving. That's survival mode. And survival mode will galvanize you and move you and shift you out of where you've been. It's like if you dip so low Something has to spring you back up. But like being shot out of a cannon, that shooting doesn't feel good, right? Or the. Or the bullet coming out of the gun, that doesn't feel good. It gets the action done, but, boy, it hurts, right? That explosive force is not comfortable. So we get out of that when we start to look at the world as more of an elegant place, a receptive place, a generative place, a place that's ongoing and fluid and easy. And it's more than just words, we tell ourselves. It's a way of feeling about our life, feeling it every single day. So when you feel your life being like this, what ends up happening is things change for you. Life rearranges itself. You now have a new understanding of it, so it has a new understanding of you. So let's talk about elegance itself. What does elegance mean? What is living elegantly, living in flow, living with ease, living with luck. What does that feel like? So another example that I'm going to borrow from my kids, right, they're both in English classes in junior high and high school, and they're learning the mechanics of writing. They're learning grammar and how to write, you know, five paragraph essays and how to make sense, right? How to write so that their thoughts are logical and flowing, easy to understand, yet powerful. And one of the biggest things I've learned, you know, helping my kids develop their writing, is often when we feel that we're writing at a higher level, we want to throw in lots of complicating words and lots of complicating ideas. And I see this happen a lot, especially in the sciences and in academics, where if I can put more jargon and complicated conceptual words into a paragraph, somehow I will sound like I know what I'm talking about. When in reality, you can read to the end of that paragraph and say, what the heck were they trying to say here? To be able to write with a clean, beautiful, consistent prose, to be able to write and even speak with power. So the best speakers, the speakers who've really touched us over the years, think about those speeches you've heard. Think of Martin Luther King. Think of some of the presidents that you admire. When they write a great speech, it's clear, it makes sense, it follows, it connects. It's not complicated and wordy and overdone and on and on and trying to overwhelm. It's the exact opposite. That is what becomes powerful. That is what becomes memorable in writing, in speaking, in any kind of communication. The same is true with your life. When your life is very powerful, very clear, very to the point, very uncomplicated, not wordy, not confusing, not filled with over much. Overdone, overblown, overdrawn. Right? That is where you start to struggle and muddle. That is the opposite of elegant. Here's another example of elegance that came to me as I was thinking up my show's notes and topic today. If you've ever heard a beautiful piece of classical music, you know, Debussy piano or some strings or violins just really speak to you. Yes. You'll notice that it might be very rich and it might be very lush. There might be horns and there might be percussion and there might be strings. There might be all of it. And you think, oh, that's very complicated. But you know what? Listen closely and you can pick out all the individual notes of each instrument. And those notes are not complicated. Those notes are clean. Those notes are pure. Those notes are on their own track and they make sense. And that composer's genius was just being able to layer these beautiful, simple melodies on top of each other. 1, 2, 3, 4. And create this bigger sound. It's incredibly elegant, but the heart is simple and structured and uncluttered. If you listen to music that's very cluttered and difficult and everything going off in every direction and heavy and slogging, it's going to be uncomfortable. You're going to say, that's a bad composer, that's a bad band. They don't know what they're doing because they haven't reached that sweet clarity. Think about the riffs that get caught in your head. The little. What do they call them? Ear worms. It's a weird term, but ear worms, right? Those are the little riffs and melodies that you sing over and over to yourself. They get stuck in you. You go to the grocery store and you're driving home and you're humming it. That's elegant. Might be annoying, but it's elegant. It's pure. It hits you, it arrived. And things that arrive spread, right? Things that hit you like that grow bigger. Those are the songs that become huge. Those are the writers that become huge. Right. Our best writers are both intelligent, but they hit home. They got you, They've gripped you. They've spun you into their web. And it feels so elegant and it feels effortless. But if you've ever read anything that feels labored, you want to put it down. You don't want to feel labored. So I'm showing you these so you can look at your life and you can start to see your Life from that perspective, labored versus elegant, labored versus flowing and simple. So the next question is, how do we get away from labored? How do we get into simple? Can we really live that way? See, a lot of us over our lives, they've gotten it stuck in their heads that the more complicated it is, the more labored it is, the bigger and better it must become and be. When really it's completely the reverse of that. It's the reverse. Let's start with elegance in your thinking. What does that look like? Well, if your thinking is labored, if your thinking is going in circles, if you're waking up and, you know, panic in the middle of the night, you're not able to sleep again because you're worrying about the bills, or you're worrying about some health issue going on in your body, or you're worrying about one of your kids and the problems that they're having. You are in a labored state of being. Your mind is running in circles. There is no elegance happening. There is no clarity. There is no end point that is being gleaned. And some part of you knows that. And eventually you say to yourself, be quiet. Go back to sleep. You're not going to solve anything right now. Go back to sleep. You're not in a state of mind where you can achieve and reach that purity and program yourself to say, ah. And this is the difference. Let's say you wake up in the morning instead and you say, now, I want the elegance in my thinking. I want the elegance in my emotions. This is when you close your eyes and you get into flow and you get into that distilled, pure place where whatever it is that's bothering you, you reach out and you say, how do I want to feel about this? What would make me feel good? If it could go in any direction at all, if it could work itself out, untangle, get pure, get clear, get still, get beautiful, grow. What would that feel like? What would that be like? And what you're going to notice as you shift from one set of emotions to the other is that this new set of emotions, the elegant sense of emotions, feels easy and clear, right? There's usually just one answer. It's good. It feels good. The good answer feels good. The good solution feels good. Even if you don't know what the solution is. You just have to feel the good of the solution. Whereas the complicated, the difficult, the heavy is when you're chasing 1500 different solutions, not knowing which is the right one, getting all bogged down, getting angry, getting frustrated. Getting more and more into fear and more and more into lack thinking, that is a burden. And that is going to stop you in your tracks and fill you up with heavy bags of cement. So elegance in your thinking and your being, your thinking, your emotional self and your being, that is number one. That is your number one aspiration. In fact, if I could give you just one thing to pursue all year above everything else, it might well be that. And you say no, no summer. I think money should be or a great relationship should be. Nope. Nope. Because if you have elegance in your heart, elegance in your thinking, elegance in your emotional self, this ability to move into flow and to ease and just kind of glide through things, if you can move into all that, that's so core. It's such a core way of being and thinking and feeling that it will naturally flow into each and every area of your life and make those areas also be smooth and flowing and ease filled. Right? So instead of trying to make just the money area ease filled and fluid, why not make you ease filled and flowing then let it flow into money and then it can flow into relationships, it can flow into health, it can flow into everything else from there. Let me give you another example. This is elegance in business. And by the way, I do see your calls, so just keep holding. I'm going to get to you in just a little bit here. Elegance in business and work. So I'm going to give you another example. In fact, today's episode is all about examples. What elegance, what flow, what ease looks like, how it plays out, how it reveals itself to you. So elegance in business. Few months ago I realized that I had over complicated a lot of my systems. Things had grown very quickly and my answer with my companies were to put more systems in place, add more people, get more software plugins, you know, get more complicated in my, in my emails and my marketing. And eventually I realized I was spending more time upholding all of the administrative aspects of Flow Dreaming and Inflow Radio than I was doing the work, doing the work that got me there in the first place. And I realized I've lost the elegance, I've lost the ease, I've lost the simplicity. If you think back to some point in your life when things really took off for you and did really, really well, you've ever had that experience before? Probably what you'll see is one of the defining things around it was I just started doing it and it really worked. And so I did more of it and then I did a lot of it and then it worked even better. And so I did more. And maybe that was falling in love and dating, and it was just so easy that you did more dates and you did more falling in love and eventually got married. And it was the happiest time in your life. Or maybe it was when you were building something, your new business or side gig. The hallmark of it was you chose one thing and you did it very well. And that's all you were really thinking about doing, was that thing, right? Feeling that thing, being in that one thing. And then eventually that thing started to get more complicated, and you added more pieces and you threw more stuff on it. It'd be like if you were painting a painting, and it was a gorgeous sunny yellow, right? A big yellow spot on a big white canvas. Gorgeous, beautiful. And then you said, well, I need to add more to this. I need to add more. So you threw on some red. Oh, it's still pretty. Threw on some blue. Still pretty. Threw on some green. Still pretty. Threw on some brown. Starting to get a little complicated here. Threw on some black, Threw on some purple. Threw on some aqua. Now we're like, what are we looking at? I'm sort of losing. What is this? What are you doing now? I'm just looking at a whole bunch of colors, and I'm not sure which and where to go. And I'm not even sure if they go together. And now they seem to be conflicting and clashing. And now you're having to support all these colors, whereas before, all you had to worry about was one yellow tube of paint. And now there are 42 or 52, and it's a mess. When we do this in our business, when we over complicate and this happens a lot to people. I see it. I coach people all the time. I say, you know what? You don't need all those funnels. You don't need all of those lead magnet thingies. You don't need. You don't need to teach 15,000 classes. Just teach one really, really good class, right? You don't need all those gimmicks. Just offer one thing that really sells. It's really, you know, connects with people. Find that. And they say, well, I need to try all these different things to find that. I'm like, well, don't try them all at once. Then try 1, 2, 3, 4. If those don't work, try another four. But you don't need to have 15 plates spinning in the air. When you do that, it becomes not elegant, and you become lost, and you become distracted, and your flow becomes lost. And Distracted. The symphony is now a hundred instruments all playing their own tunes, and you're running around from one to the next to the next trying to make all of them sound right, and yet none of them are fitting together. A big part of elegance in your work life is, here's what I'm really great at, and I'm going to do more of that. Here is what's working, and I'm going to do more of that. Here's what I love doing, what makes my heart sing and glow, and I'm going to do more of that. You follow? Maybe it means you have to stop chasing the dollar for a while. Maybe it means you have to put down things that everyone else told you were a good idea to do that you don't really want to do. Put them down, get elegant, get ease filled, get flow filled. This is where things go big. So again, here's another image for you, another way of connecting. Imagine a river. And this river is a very slow river, and there's a big delta, and that's where the river kind of just merges out into kind of like a swampy wetlands. I guess I'm talking about Florida here, right? It has some rivers and. And they just kind of like blanket out and spread out. So you got all these lands where the water is standing 2 inches deep on them lands not good for much of anything. Can't build on them, can't fish in them, can't hike in them. The animals that live in them are, you know, lots of little, little fishies and amphibians maybe, but generally considered not sellable land, right? Isn't there that old joke, if you can buy this, I've got some land in Florida marshes or something I want to sell you. This is what happens when our work and careers become very complicated. That directed force of you spreads so thin among all this stuff that nothing becomes useful and viable, and it all becomes a burden to upkeep. And that's what you end up spending your time doing opposite. Think of a thin, fast river. Think of the river that goes through the Grand Canyon, right? It's got those big, beautiful towering cliffs on either side, really condensing that river into something that is fluid and flowing and in motion. There is energy, there is drive, there is reaching the end point. There's life, right? You can go kayaking and canoeing, you can go fishing. There's vibrancy there. And that water is getting to its goal a lot faster than that. Slow seepy, overwrought over complicated, unelegant structure. So this is like an eye opener for you. Where in your life are things unelegant? Where have they become that way for you? Take a moment, just check in. Open your eyes. Open yourself to that. Let's talk about elegance in relationships. Elegance in relationships. How about another area where we kind of zero in the lens? What does flow have to say about that? Well, again, in MI school, one of the things we do is we're looking. Where are you over complicated? Where can you cut back? Where can you pare down? If you pare down, will you go faster? Right. Isn't that what they used to do in ships and things and airplanes? If they're too full, they have to get rid of some of the cargo and the luggage so they can fly faster and go further. That's you. So we look for that in ME school, and we do that, and the end result is phenomenal. Right? This is where you learn to really excel, finally. And you realize that excelling is not about overcomplicating and putting more on. It's the opposite. So in a relationship, what's going on? Well, in a relationship, think about that relationship you've had that got really complicated. It got really messy, got really overfull. You spend a lot of time in maintenance mode, a lot of time trying to take care of it and shore it up in your relationship. You feel like, ugh, half the time it's more difficult than it's worth. I feel guilty. I have to do this. I can't leave that. I can't change it. It's my mom, it's my husband, it's my whatever. Is that relationship in flow? Is that relationship growing and nurturing and feeling good, or is it the opposite? A relationship that's in flow feels different every time you talk. It feels easy. It's like that friend you have that you don't talk to for six months at a time, but whenever you do talk, it's like immediately reconnecting, like no time has passed. That is a relationship in flow. That kind of relationship fills you up. It's effortless even. Even as you give to that other person, whether it's a friend or a partner or whomever, even as you give to them, it doesn't feel like you're giving. It feels effortless. It feels easy and good. You're getting so much more back than you feel like you're putting out. But oddly enough, the other person also feels the same way. This is what happens when your relationships are filled with that energy of elegance, that energy of ease. They are uncomplicated instead of complicated. What can you do right now to take a relationship in your life that has become complicated, overburdened, difficult? Lots of unspoken things, lots of unhealed things, lots of grudges, lots of, let's try. What can you do to just bring it back to, hey, let's try this again. Let's start from right now. I love you, I care about you, and I want what's best for you and us. That's how I feel. And those are my ground rules. Now, what can we do with that? Right? It can be just as simple as expressing the desire for simplicity and elegance. Like that is it. That can be the starting point of all new. I don't even want to say negotiations, because that sounds complicated. That can be the starting point of all new exchanges, of all steps forward from that moment. Why not? It's all baggage in your head that says, it's hard, it's difficult. We've been through so much. There's all this stuff, blah, blah, blah. You know what? Maybe that's true. But as long as you keep feeling that way, you're gonna keep creating more of that. And you really want to get back into the place of ease and elegance. Why? Again, the more ease and elegance you open up in your life, the more things become simple, fluid and flowing. The more simple, fluid and flowing they are, the less time you spend in management in figuring out and debugging and hitting your head against the wall. Challenges, right? Your challenges should be chosen in life. They should be things that you say, I'm going to grow from this and this looks exciting and I want this and I'm going to figure this out. This is going to make me bigger and better. Those are good challenges, but over complication, things that are inelegant and ugly, those are just things that have grown top heavy and are getting in the way. So we're gonna pause right now and take a quick call, maybe go to a break, come back, and I have more areas of elegance in your life to examine, including elegance in your body and understanding the right size for the right moments in time, what that means. But first, I have a call from Sage here. Right here in San Diego. Hey, Sage.
Hi, Susan.
How are you? Hey. Have we ever talked before?
We've never talked, but I've been listening to you since I was 15.
Oh, my God. Wow. Wow.
I feel like I know you a bit. Yeah. Thank you so much for just your influence in my life. I'm about to turn 21 in three days.
Congratulations.
Thank you. And I'm hoping that you could look into my flow. I recently moved to San Diego in the beginning of the summer, and I thought I was going to attend a school down here. And I've just been, you know, following my flow throughout my life and really honoring what my gut says do. And sometimes that doesn't make any sense. And I've definitely tried a lot of different things. I've tried a few different schools. I work in the beauty industry. I graduated from esthetician school, and I thought maybe I would try to study beauty merchandising. But suddenly that didn't feel like part of my flow anymore. It felt a little unauthentic. And this summer has been a little depressive. And I. Yeah, and I flew back home up to Washington State this summer, and I spent the summer out in nature, and I was trying to get back in touch with my authenticity. So I'm just wondering where I should be putting my energy. I have a few different ideas, a few different creative projects, and I really just wanted to chat with you.
Yeah, so tell me about something that does interest you, that lights your heart up. Because just because you finished one area of study does not mean you are forced to go into this next one. I mean, if you were to force yourself through beauty merchandising, what you might end up still, you know, discovering at the very end of the day was I'd actually rather, you know, be on Instagram, you know, you know, talking about different beauty products myself to people. You know, I don't want to be a rep for someone's hair salon, you know, conditioner or something.
Yeah, you got it. I really, I'm focused on helping people. And when I was doing my esthetician work in school, I was really helping people heal their skin issues. And I want to be hands on and I want to be creative. So that does stimulate me. And the merchandising world, it felt a little corporate, you know, I wasn't really sure what I was getting myself into. I thought maybe I needed that beauty business aspect. But right now, what makes my heart sing, I've been actually working on making bath bombs and homemade skincare products. And so I've been putting my energy into that. But I'm just. I'm still battling with this guilt almost about getting into this school and not going, because this literally was my dream school for a very, very long time. I would look, I would listen to your show, actually, and I would put my flow, you know, into going to the school, and it almost seemed unattainable. For me, because, you know, I started. I started out very humble beginnings and, you know, in poverty, and I worked my way up and I thought, oh, this is my key to success and just reevaluating everything and kind of getting in touch with living on my own terms.
Okay, so look at this. Like, when I. When I feel you and I feel around in your flow and just kind of where you are, the plans that you made when you were coming out of poverty, right. When you were having to, like, pull yourself up and I'm going to go to beauty school and. And then I'm going to, like, merch and get into that world, and it's going to. It's going to take me to that different place. That was as big as your vision could be back then. That was as big as the vision you had when you were 15. And it was a good one because it led you this far because you simply couldn't have a bigger vision for yourself than that. But now you're 21, you've grown tremendously. You've already. You've accomplished. You went through school, you experienced it, you did it, you nailed it. And as a result, your vision has grown. So you're feeling guilt for sticking with a vision that you created for yourself years ago, which is actually a vision that's underneath you now, because you've grown past it. And it doesn't matter if you've grown past it before you ever completely achieved it. That doesn't matter. You've still grown past it. And you're starting to think in terms of entrepreneurial, like, I'm making my own bath bombs. Right. Maybe I'll start some companies that create healthful products that help people heal, heal their skin. Or I'll specialize and one particular condition. And maybe I will go to work for a bigger company that I discover already. Already has that mission. You know, maybe I'm going to become the brand ambassador for them, or maybe I'm going to work at their headquarters, or maybe I won't do any of that and I'll just simply do something on my own and start it on myself. Maybe what I really need is to take a course in business management.
Yeah.
See, this is where you need to start letting yourself grow into that bigger vision. You have permission to go there.
Yeah.
But the biggest thing is that early vision you had is what you needed. So this merch school that you wanted to go to, that was your initial vision, but you don't have to follow it through, because now you've grown enough that you see Something above it. Imagine a building and you could only see two floors of it. And now you look up and you're like, wait, this is a 10 story building. Maybe I should be thinking about what's on the sixth or seventh floor instead. You know what? Take the elevator right past that second floor because now you can actually see it. And for me, that's the much bigger goal for sure. So when I look at you and I said to you, start thinking about maybe learning some business fundamentals. Maybe there is a company that is mimicking something that you want to do and you should think about instead doing a stint with them as an employee or an internal. Mm. Okay. Reaching out to those other areas because you're ready for it.
Yeah.
Does that make sense at all? Do you get any ideas percolating?
I do the whole metaphor with the different floors. I do feel like I couldn't see that perspective when I was younger. But I am ready to see bigger things. And I guess I need to forgive myself and honor my resistance to that. And I just want to make sure that it was the right decision.
All right, Sage, so is this school that you're going to, is it a specialty school or is it like getting a two or four year degree?
It has the potential to be a four year degree. It's the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising.
I know. Fidm, I believe. I took classes there myself many, many, many ages ago.
Oh, really?
Yep, yep, yep. I was quite into into design way back. Yeah. So looking at you and fidm, I think if you. Okay. Just what I'm seeing around you, I'll just give you a little read.
Thank you.
What I'm seeing around you is that if you were to go there and enroll, I think you would end up being happy. I don't think it would be the drawback that you thought it would be, but you would feel a bit like another four years of my life where I'm not getting started and I'm not really doing what I want. Right. I think it would almost be a four year detour because at the end of the day, I still think you're going to end up doing the same work that you would end up doing if you did not go.
Gotcha.
Okay. Because it's almost like you're going to end up at the same place no matter which path you take. So you can take a different path right now. You can take a path of going to work. You can take a path of just, you know, getting some specialty classes in something else that you're fascinated with, but it's all going to lead almost to the same end. I don't think that FIDM is going to lead you off in a whole different direction. I think it would be good and solid, but I can feel you just itching to move on over the next four years. Like, just, come on, Win.
Come on. I was doing that myself. I was doing that myself. And that's why I felt that resistance to this four year commitment. And.
Believe me, I am the last person to say don't go to college. I'm the biggest believer in college. Okay.
I'm very interested in higher education and I have been looking at herbology classes, actually more in depth with plants and using their properties for my skin care. So I am very interested in higher education. I just need to get some clarity because it just feels like there's a lot of different options right now.
Yeah, I know. I gotta tell you, though, the one that just keeps popping up and it may have not been on your radar at all, is business management. Right. Fundamentals of running business. Because I just feel like in your future you have a real possibility there. And it's not just because of the bath bombs. It's because you just, you have products and you have a vision. And right now, you're still landing on it, you're still discovering what it is, but you will need tools to get that vision out. And so the business stuff is going to be something that, you know, it might be dry and boring as hell, but it's going to give you what you need to be able to implement your vision. Once that vision really settles into your hand, whether it's a combination of, you know, I've discovered a new skin wash. It's made out of chamomile and tea tree and, you know, ginkgo. Who knew, right? But then it turns out, it clears up, you know, all kinds of things. You're gonna need something that can sustain you as you grow and develop that. And I just.
Yes.
Yeah. Okay. All right, my dear. So take that. Run with it. Good luck. Do your flow. Dreaming around it. All right. Every morning I'm in flow. This is easy, this is elegant. I flow right into what I should be doing. If I make a wrong choice, I'm immediately redirected into the right one. Right. That's often what I tell myself.
Okay, I will. Thank you so much.
All right, my dear. Love you. Thank you for calling. I hope this helps.
Love you, Summer. Thank you so much.
Take care. All right, bye now. Okay, we're gonna go to A quickie little break. Remember when we get back, elegance in the body and the right size for the right moment of time so you know that you're doing the right things in the right moment. And in the meantime, you might want to go during the break, check out B School. These are all things we cover and we fix and grow and develop for you. So just go to flowdreaming.com youm can also find a complete shop of all of my flow dreams there things that will help you with anything that you're trying to grow or co create or solve or heal and nourish in your life. So stay with me. I'll be right back. While we're on break, have you checked out MI School?
In MI School we travel together through a year, through everything that you are. You get to discover what drives you, how you're made, and how powerful you actually are. We play with intuition and Flow Dreaming and dozens of other techniques as you go through one of the most potent, powerful and pleasurable personal development experiences you've ever seen. We continually co create your future and I ask you to bring big goals to the table. Things that you want to become inside yourself. And you'll reach these using the tools.
That you've probably never been exposed to before in your life.
But you will be here in MI School. So if you're curious, go to flowdreaming.com.
And click on MI School. Set up a call and we'll help you see exactly what you can do with your life. And if you choose to come join me in MI School, then I look.
Forward to spending the next year with you as we work together to create miracles. In case you missed it, the number to call to talk to me live is the U.S. number, 145-67-277. Flow Dreaming airs live on Tuesdays. So check flowdreaming.com for my current live broadcast time. Again reach me at 1-760-456-7277. Now let's get back to the show.
Welcome back. So let's finish up our show together. Maybe even do a bit of Flow dreaming. I wanted to say a few words about elegance in the body. Elegance in the body is obviously something I've been playing with a lot over the last couple of years since I became free of breast cancer. And one of the things I've noticed about elegance in the body is when we become very over complicating in terms of what we can eat, what we can't eat, what we allow ourselves to do. Don't allow ourselves to do the exact exercise routines we have to be in, the amount of meditation or flow drumming we have to do each day. The yoga classes that we have to attend or not attend. When we overdo and over complicate, we tend to step away and step out. I have discovered that for me to achieve elegance in my body, ease, flow, simplicity, really, it means just bringing things down to about a core three or four things. And if I can get and oops, excuse me, maintain. I just knocked my microphone. I get so excited, I just make all these hand gestures and knock my equipment around. That's what you heard. But if I can bring my, if I can bring myself to really focus on those three or four things, then taking care of my health becomes easy, it becomes in flow and it becomes elegant. And so I'm just going to say just a few words on this because I do want to keep a little time for flow dreaming today. But for me, those four simple things, and maybe this will be for you too, and maybe you've listened the whole show and this is the one thing that will really connect with you and make you shout, oh, eureka. But for me, it's eating better, right? Not a specific diet, not running from diet to diet. Just eat better, eat simple, eat clean. That's it. That means I'm not saying you can't have carbs. In the morning I'll have a piece of wheat toast, right? I can eat wheat. I'll put some avocado on it, get some oils. I eat simple and I eat clean, simple, easy, flowing. I add in my vitamins and my alternative therapies again, I keep them simple, easy, flowing, elegant. And I try new things from time to time. It's not like I just say, well, I'm only taking four and that's it. I have my core ones that I take all the time because I know they work with me. And every now and then I'll shuffle something else into the mix. It's easy. It doesn't take up a lot of my bandwidth or my brain or my time. I also take care of my mind and my emotional self, right? That is what takes care of my body. My mind and my emotions are part of my body. So elegance for me in that arena means doing my flow dreaming this morning. In fact, right now, I'm staring at a list. I started my morning by writing out some gratitude and then after I wrote a list of, I did a free write about things I was grateful for. And then I went into some flow around things that I want to continue to Be grateful for. I did some pre gratitude exercises with them. And that's it. Easy, simple, elegant. And then the last thing that I need, that I require is exercise, right? Walk around, boy, tell you, walking around eight hours at Disneyland yesterday certainly gave me exercise. And oddly enough, I feel pretty good today because I got so much exercise. But exercise, movement, I know my body likes. Doesn't matter what. I'm not like putting myself in an Ironman costume, thinking of Disneyland, right Contest. I'm just doing the simple, easy things that I know my body likes and wants. You know, the 30 minute walks, a little bit of rowing, a little bit of weights here and there, my gardening, getting sunshine. That's it. Easy. Those four things, if those four things are happening and percolating and I make them manageable and doable, my health improves and that's elegance in my body. And it's not overcomplicated and it's not overwrought and there's not 15 gym memberships and four different diets and all of these things that I'm trying to do at the same time. No, it's clear, it's basic, but I do it and I focus on it and I feel it. I be it. So the last thing I want to share with you before we jump into the right size for the right moment in time. Well, actually, no, wait. The last thing, the last thing I want to share with you. See, I'm just tripping up everything. I guess I do need more sleep. The last thing I want to share with you is the right size for the right moment in time before we go into the flow dream. So when I talk about the right size for the right moment in time, it's this concept again, this is from me school. It's the concept that there is a moment for everything and everything has a size or an amount that it holds in you. So at any given time, you might be asked to hold a lot or a little. If you're holding a lot in one area, like something really big enters your life. Sometimes this happens, you know, suddenly we have to deal with something big that's plopped in our lap or, you know, it's a family issue or something going on. If things are easy and elegant, you will be able to support that big thing. It will drop in and it will have a place and you'll be able to hold it and you won't feel like the straw that broke the camel's back. This is what we're striving for when that big thing ends and finishes and Completes. You may have a series of smaller things come in. They're the right size for what they are. So a way of looking at this would be, you know, I'm trying to find a really good example of this. The right size, the right size. What would be something recently for me that is the right size for the right moment? Okay, well, over the summer I did a series of VIP sessions and I hadn't done them in a very long time. And I thought, you know, if I just do a limited number and I just do them for a few weeks, this feels like the right amount to give, and this is the right time to give it. And that was it. That was easy. There was no further bigger game plan. It wasn't going to lead into this bigger thing, this big, big, big, big. It was like, I just want to connect with people. You know, I want to reach out and just see who's out there and who's listening to me right now and who's receiving and who do I need to guide. Coming from that standpoint, it made the whole process easy. And funny enough. Things that are easy often go really, really well. They're in flow and they're simple. So I'd like you to be looking around right now for some things that, that are the right size for this moment for you right now. Again, no overcomplicating. Bring them down, make them fit in the cup of your hand. Make them fit in the cup of your hand. Try doing things from that size first. Allow them to grow bigger. And then when they become over complicated, like the big thorny bushes that you know surrounded Sleeping Beauty's castle, then you have to cut them down and you have to replant. And maybe, maybe, maybe that is where you're at right now in your life. If so, now is the time. Get it done. Pick the area, pick the thing, prune it back. Get simple, get easy, get elegant. And when you do, all kinds of synchronicities open up for you. All kinds of opportunities start rolling your way. And that's how you know you're doing it right. Because these things start happening. And until they start happening, what the universe and what flow is telling you is keep doing it, keep doing it. So let's close now with just a five minutes in flow where we just relax, close our eyes, we release. Deep breath in and relaxing. Rolling your neck, wiggling your jaw, releasing and relaxing. At ease, peaceful, peaceful release. Imagine yourself, pretend daydream with me.
That.
You'Re a little candle that you've lit. Maybe it's on your desk, your bathroom counter, maybe on a little table in your home, a sweet scented candle. And the flame is very still and pure. And it burns without any effort, that beautiful soy wax. It's sweet. The flame is pure. It's easy. It takes almost nothing to let it continue to burn, Burn and be. This is you. You flicker and you glow. And you take almost no effort at all. You flicker and you glow. No effort at all. You just are. You're pure, uncomplicated, at ease, elegant, beautiful to watch, beautiful to smell. And yet you see you, this gorgeous light you radiate. You light up the room. If it were dark, you would have a halo of light expanding, extending so far beyond you. You feel yourself you are, this light extending so far beyond you. All from the purity and the simplicity of this glow. There was no extra effort, no extra work, no complication. To reach this far, to light the room, to light the walls, just this tiny, beautiful, simple ease filled you, is all it takes to go big, to grow big, to flow big. This is you. This is peace. This is you. Elegance, ease. A song, a note, a sound. You expand, moving through your life, moving through the air. Ease, fill, flow, fill. Synchronicities begin snapping, percolating and popping. Opportunities begin flowing your way, arriving for you right as if on schedule. You find that you have time in your life. You're relaxed, you sleep well at night. No stress, just ease. Just ease. And that now is the feeling you hold even now as you return, coming back, back from flow, eyes open. And that, my friends, is a beautiful, soft, simple flow dream to get you moving, to get you into that next phase, to get you into that state of elegance. So with me for more Flow Dreaming next week, same time, same place. Until then, my love to you all. Have a great week.
Hey everyone, thanks for listening today. One request before you go, Please rate this podcast either in itunes or tunein.com or wherever you listen to it. It'll only take you a minute to do, but your rating there is the number one way that other people discover this show. And the more ratings, the more people who will find and get turned on to Flow Dreaming. While you're there, you might also want to download my free Flow Dreaming podcast app. With this app, you can listen to the show anywhere you want on your mobile device, as well as search through listings of all of my episodes and bookmark your favorites. And if you want to listen to Flow Dreams, actual Flow Dreams on your phone, there's even another app. It's my player app and it will let you browse and sample Flow Dreams from the shop. There's even an oracle inside of that app to help you see and discover what you need to know most or what Flow Dream would be best for.
You in your life right now.
You can find these apps on itunes, or in Google or your Amazon App Store. And again, thank you so, so, so much for giving back.
Love you. Bye. Bye.