616: Creative Nurturing Time (How to Know What A Good Next Step Looks Like)

Creative nurturing is that space where you give yourself freedom. You let yourself wander, explore, experiment. You let things in your life evolve. Right? It's like taking the lid off something and seeing just how high that thing will grow that had been previously contained inside that space that you felt was appropriate for it. Creative nurturing can be scary because it often means that things that you've previously made have to look and feel different now. 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. Hey friends, welcome. We are on episode 616 of Flow Dreaming. It's called Creative nurturing time or how to know what a good next step looks like. So come join me as we explore this mindset piece together as we integrate it with a bit of flow dreaming. If you're not familiar with what flow dreaming is, well, go back into the archives. You're going to find a show or many shows that will teach you basics of Flow dreaming, flow dreaming 101, et cetera. If you can't find anything in the podcast, an even better way is to go to my website, flowdreaming.com. there is a free kit there and you download it and it will teach you what this beautiful thing is that we're all here doing together. To manifest, to co create in our lives a deep emotion based technique. I think you're gonna love it. So let's move on here. Last episode I gave you guys a heads up of where I've been. But we are back in the saddle now and I'm gonna start telling you about some of the things that I have personally been up to during my own creative nurturing time. And also explain what creative nurturing time is, how you get there, what the results of it are, what the downsides of it can be. And then of course, we might even do a little flow dreaming this time to see if we can't get a little creative nurturing going inside of you. So some of you guys know I started a new membership group called Born to Make. And I know that makers and making is like, you know, it's like a, it's big in the crafting world. Like if you're craftsy, it's called making. But from a co creator standpoint, a manifesting standpoint, someone like myself who works in flow energy, and, you know, I create law of attraction, all of that making becomes something even bigger. It becomes this way of stating that I am making my life right? I am programming my future. All of my actions, everything that I am is reflecting outward and aligning things to me that fit what I have made of me or inside me. Making is what I do every moment, every day. I'm making something, I'm making energy, I'm making wisdom, I'm making breakfast, I'm making the bed, I'm making happiness. I'm making work get done. Whatever it is, it's a constant series of making. So the group that I created called Born to Make, I realized that a lot of us who've been enjoying flow dreaming for years, well, there's a subset of us, pretty big subset actually, but we love flow dreaming not just because we like it for manifesting, but there are areas of our lives that we use it the most in. And yes, you guessed it, it's often in our careers, our finances, money, and our security. Because what we end up doing most of the day, like the time you're spending right now could be working. I mean, maybe you're listening while you work. I hope so. What a cool job. So you're working, you're spending your time right now making stuff, probably for someone else. And this is your life that you are giving away in return for money so that you can have the things that you need. You know, a home and clothes and going out with your friends and buying food and taking care of your kids. So the Born to Make group, I said to myself, we should have a focus on being creative entrepreneurs, spiritual entrepreneurs, people who want to create balanced, healthy lifestyles. But we have something in us that we want to get out and express into the world that's not just about working for someone else, right? It's our thing, you know, and whether you're, you know, knitting dog booties or composing symphonies or building an online store, it's something you're making. And you're making it because you want to return from it. So how does this relate to creative nurturing? I know you're like, that's enough about Born to Make. Okay, fine, it does deeply. Because, you see, for me to get to the point where I got to open Born to Make, I had to look at what I've been doing for the last 15 years with Flow dreaming, right? I've made hundreds of flow dreams. I've taught, I've written books about it, you know, Done. Webinars led people through the process. Hundreds and hundreds of students come through MI school and my thought was, now what? Right now what? And sometimes in life it's about taking something that you've made and making it just bigger and bigger and refining it and growing it and grooming it and finally letting it grow up so it can just walk out onto the world on its own. And the whole flow dreaming process is in that stage right. Right now it's like a young adolescent. I would say we're not quite there yet, but at the same time, I need to keep progressing, growing. What interests me? What else have I done? Well, I realized I've made a lot of businesses, I've made a lot of products, and I've made a lot of things. Not only do I teach people how to co create using flow, how to get them empathically aware, read the energies of life, yes. But I've taken all of that knowledge and I've put it into products for people and those products have become businesses. And before that, I did it for Hay House for a decade and for all of those other thought leaders, took their understandings, their heart's dreams, and helped them put them into podcasts and radio programs and audio programs and seminars and webinars. So for me, creative nurturing looks like this. There's something I've done a lot of, but it needs to go to the next level. What is that going to be? The first thing I seized on was I know where a lot of you are going. You're using flow dreaming for your wealth, for your money, for your career, for the way you spend your day to day hours, for your long term safety, for your retirement. And you know what? I use flow dreaming a lot for that too. And I'm fascinated by being an entrepreneur, by running my own show, by being able to sit here in my bathrobe right now as I'm recording for you. And I want to show you how to do that. So I let myself explore in new territory. Sometimes in the business world, they call it pivoting. Pivoting is when you're cruising down one direction and either you get kind of bored of that direction or it starts not working out for you, or it's actually doing really well and it's just time to open up something next door to it. Right? You know, it's time to expand the neighborhood. So my pivot was to take a niche of flow dreaming and say, I'm gonna support you. Now, born to make is not a big, big thing, right? It's a small thing. It's a monthly program. Inexpensive, but it's where I keep giving people the steady drip of ideas, steady drip of mindset, steady drip of flow, dreams every month of ways of expanding, gaining audience, et cetera. It's nothing like me school. So let me share with you another shift that creative nurturing time is allowing me to do right now. Actually, wait, let's back up. You're wondering, like, what is creative nurturing time that it's creating all of these new things, like little bubbles popping out of soda. What is it? Creative nurturing time? Definition is when you allow yourself the space and the freedom in your heart, in your life, and in your time, in your day, step back and open up new ideas, new possibilities to start to wonder, what would it look like if I change this or that? Why do I think that this is only as much of this thing that I can actually fit into my life? What if I can do more? What if you can sing and play and you've only been doing it for yourself or church on Sunday, and you realize I could actually do this on Tuesdays and Thursdays down the street too? What happens if I nurture this a little bit and let it grow and see what happens? And it seems really obvious, like, well, yeah, except a lot of us never do this. We don't do it because it means entertaining, shaking things up. It means entertaining the possibility that the thing we want to grow will actually keel over, flop over and give up the ghost. We don't want to fail. We've got it where it is. And if we let it evolve, if we let it evolve, what will happen to it? It's sort of like when I counsel people about relationships, you know, and they're like, it's just, we're stuck. I'm like, have you been letting your relationship evolve? No. What does that mean? Well, if you don't let it evolve, you know, anything that's not flowing stagnates brackish water turns putrid. Everything must be evolving. How is your relationship developed? The same is true for your own inner creative expression. And by creative, I don't mean you'd have to be that singer songwriter. Your creative expression might be. I'm an accountant, and I have this really innovative way of expanding my business or of bringing in junior accountants and shifting the way things are done in my office. Right? That is your creative nurturing time. You're gonna shake it up, and you're gonna entertain those thoughts, and you're gonna let things evolve. But the first thing you have to have is the mind space that this is happening. The second is time in your day for it to happen. And the third is the awareness of what is it happening to and what happens if I start playing with this. You guys got it? That's what creative nurturing time is. Are you in it right now? Maybe you're in it. You don't even know you're in it. Maybe we'll get into that a bit later. So I'm gonna go back to some of my own examples. I hope you don't mind. I'm not talking about myself. I mean, I am talking about myself, but I know myself best. And so it's easy to use me as the example for you as opposed to pulling up all of my student stuff and then trying to disguise who they are so I don't over share, et cetera. So I looked also at MI School, right? This is another beautiful program. This is still, hands down, one of the best things I have ever created outside of the Flow technique itself. MI School in its sixth year. Now. It's time to change. And I really didn't want to change MI School. I mean, especially after I've spent thousands of hours perfecting it, recording it, walking people through the system. Just perfect. But I can feel it. It's like looking up at me saying, I need to change form now, Mom. Are you going to let me? And part of me is like, no, you're going to be seven forever. I love you. This is a perfect age. No. You know, my little kid. And another part of me says, yep, we're gonna have to do this, aren't we? And how do I know this? Because in my creative nurturing time, it keeps coming up. And I realize that my relationship with MI School has been shifting. So I can either ignore it and just plug my ears and say, na, na na. Everything stays the same. You know what happens when we do that to things in our life though, right peeps? Or I can walk right up and say, how do you want to be different? How do you want to be different? Which is scary. You take something successful and you say, now, how do you want to be different? Oh, please don't. Isn't that why we have like, you know, Jurassic Park? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. We don't want it to be different. We want the same movie pretty much, you know, different island. But me school is changing. And I'll be revealing more about that next year. But let's just say it's going to be a lot shorter of a program. And you'll be hearing from me about it and all of you who wanted to be in me school. This is your second shot at it in its new form, which might be a little more affordable or fit into your schedule a little faster and more easily. I'm also shifting back and doing more private coaching. I know, I know. Kind of cool, huh? For a long time, I didn't have the time to do private coaching. I had companies that I was getting off the ground, new pro programs, developing, just even flow dreams to record. But one thing that I've realized in my creative nurturing time is that it's my private students, the ones that I work with every month, one on one together, where I get to kind of play with how their lives are evolving. They're playing. They are the single biggest factor that pushes me in my own growth, hands down. And these are my students that I've worked with for oftentimes year after year after year. And we come into the next year and I say, well, I don't even know how it could get better. You've stumped me. But you know what? I know it can. So I've got to find that out. I've got to find out what that looks and feels like. So I'm going back to private coaching, more students. In fact, I'm opening up some slots. If you have an interest, if you want to start the new decade working with me one on one, please go to my website, flowdreaming.com coaching. Fill out the form. And this is a real thing. I mean, it's a real possibility for you. You are not stepping into something that's way out of your league. If you're listening and you're responding in your heart, there's a good chance that you are over ready. And then we'll talk about whether we can do it for you, you know, if it'll work for you. So I'm also changing that up. My creative nurturing time said more connectivity, one on one with people. It's where your biggest breakthroughs come through. It's where most knowledge comes to you and gets sort of downloaded through you. So I want you right now to ask yourself, have I allowed any creative nurturing time in my life this year? And maybe you're looking at your last six months and you're thinking, it's just been a whirlwind. I've just been like running from one, putting out one fire after another. If that's the case, you haven't had creative nurturing time. Maybe you've been in a period of hot and heavy growth, and you're like, yes, best six months ever. Fantastic. Means you've got creative nurturing time on your horizon. It's coming up. Maybe you've been meaning to allow yourself some creative nurturing time, but really you've just been feeling stuck and dull and not really sure of what's your next step. Well, if that's you, you're actually in creative nurturing time, but you haven't been utilizing it as creative nurturing time. I'll tell you what happens if you don't consciously become aware that I'm in this period where I'm feeling antsy and restless and I have to stretch, and some things are breaking in my life right now, and some things are changing shape and some things are trying to bust out, like, you know, this space. But if you don't do anything with it, you just continue to sit and feel these feelings over and over and over. What you end up doing is getting into a state of burnout and stuck. And I know that because I have rejected creative nurturing time, too. Especially, you know, me school. Great example. Like, no, this is great. It's perfect. I don't want to change this. I don't want. No, don't. Nope, don't. Mm. Mm. It's perfect. Well, it needs to grow. It needs to change. You are not allowing it to evolve. Summer, if you don't allow it to evolve, it's gonna just go away. What do you want? Not that I'm going to shut down me school. I'm not doing that. The point is, if I don't allow it to evolve, if I stop resisting the call, right? That's what I need to do. If I don't, then I'm going to be fighting and pushing and resisting and burning out, trying to keep something the same. And I hope you're noticing right now, as always, often what you're hearing can be applied to more than one level. What are you pushing and preventing and holding on to, trying to keep it the same. It's causing you to burn out, to wear out, and eventually you say, I'm stuck. How'd I get stuck? Well, I tell you what. There's a solution, and it's beautiful. All it requires is for you to feel a little bit of. How do I describe this feeling? A little bit of courage, a little buzz of excitement. A lot. A whole heaping tablespoonful of trust and allowing. Right? These are the feelings we give to our life, our future, our flow. When we say, I'm Ready to creatively nurture this expansion. And as the ideas come to me and I can no longer resist the push or the call or the demand, and I let myself flow into this, it's like busting down a dam in a river. Ah, the sweet relief. But yes, things look different, because they should. So what I'd like us to do together here is a little flow dream. And like I already said, if you don't know how to flow dream, just go along with me. You can download my kit, you can learn all about it. But for the meantime, remember, flow dreaming, it's not meditation. If it's meditation, you're gonna say, you're talking too fast, you're talking too loud. There's too much going on. I don't want you to meditate. I want you to feel. And if I start talking fast and loud, it's because there's some emotion that we are just about to tap. And it's just gotta be like, you gotta push on the lid, like a little pop open lid, like boom. I need to get that out, express it, rev up, ramp out to it. That is the feeling of being in flow with that deep, gorgeous emotion. Flow itself. Of course. Remember the path of ease, the path of least resistance, the path of time, the path of the flow of the galaxies as they expand. The path of birth to death, the path of motion. Right? All of these paths just happen. There is no resistance unless someone or something puts resistance in your life, has such a path, has such a flow. Pure ease, pure growth, pure give and receive. Flow is an effortless state of being. It's expansive. You forget where you are. You forget how much time has passed. You literally move from your present physical state into an expanded, energetic state that is more connected with more levels of life and reality. And it's absurdly easy. Of course, we were born with this. You don't have to fight and struggle for years to learn this. If you were put here to evolve, you were sure as heck put here with a technique or a method or means to do it daily, right? At least that's how my God would work. He would say, you can hold my hand every day. So let's go ahead and jump into flow. Excuse me, if you hear me rattling my pages, I always have show notes here. All right? So go ahead and close your eyes with me. Relax. Take a nice deep, deep breath. And as you exhale, your abdomen releases, your shoulders drop. You roll your neck on your shoulders and you wiggle your jaw a bit. You just don't want to carry Tension. You let it all go, the tension in your brow. It all releases and it all relaxes. And you're letting your imagination start to roam. Unboxing your daydream, imagining and feeling. Feeling yourself standing on a soft green bank, grassy or mossy, and right there at the tip of your toes, soft little sand. Shallow water. You could dip your toes and walk straight in. There's a pool of beautiful, clear energy. Looks like water, but it's not. You dip your hand in, it's light as a feather. It drips between your fingers. It feels potent and magical and real. It feels alive. It's a living energy. You have a deep desire to walk into this pool, to feel the soft blanket of energy caress your feet, your ankles, calves. And as you do this, you notice that this energy is moving somehow. It's not really a pool. It just appeared that way. But as you examine it more, looking forward and backward, you see it's more like a stream of light, just billowing and blowing and flowing from your past, right here in the moment, your present, and into your future, which you can see out there in the. In the mists ahead. This energy flows with you. It pushes you. It nudges you. It embraces you. Come forward. Flow into your future. Release. Relax. Walk the path of ease. Flow in the path of ease. Glide in the path of beauty and ease. And you say, well, I love the feeling. This feels so wonderful. Is this where everything in my life just works all the time? And yes is the answer. It's a soft flush of answer. Yes, you can feel it. Everything here just works. Everything is in divine timing and in divine order for you. And you say, I'm here because I need some nurturing right now. I need some creative expansion. I need to know the next step. Where do I evolve myself? I need to evolve something in my life. And you know exactly what that thing is. You can feel it in your heart. Maybe it's work. Maybe it's a project, maybe a relationship. Maybe it's a dream or desire that's been small, and you want it to grow bigger in you. You want to release it and let it out. And it wants to come out. Can you feel it? It's. It's like a little bird's wings fluttering in your heart. And it just says, open the window. Open the window. Let me fly. I want to fly in this flow. I need to be allowed out. I need to change and grow and evolve. And if you let me, you can trust it. You can trust it. Trust in me. Trust the process. You Hear it, feel it. This. This part of you, this dream in you, this vision. It says, trust me. Let me change. Let me grow. Let me experiment. Let me feel. Let me try a new direction. Let me go into the next step. I will show you what it is. I will lead you, like holding your hand and pulling you out on the floor to waltz. Trust me. And so you do. You do. Trust, trust, trust. In that moment, you feel the release. It's like the bird flying out of your hands, out through the window, up into the sky, into the sun, rising up. And you wonder, how can it do that? How does it even know how to fly? It knows how to fly. Your dream knows its next best incarnation. It knows what it should look and feel like next. Trust it. It knows. Allow it. Embrace it. Roll with it. Flow with it. It's got you. It's with you. You can do it. Yes, I can. You say, I can. I can do this. And we are doing this. And now it's already happened, and I have already expanded. I'm allowing myself to move more free, like a dancer swirling across the floor, filled with ease, filled with grace. No resistance. Whatever it is that needs to change or evolve, I'm with you. You have me. You have my heart, you have my energy, you have my everything. We flow together into our next step, which is beautiful and perfect. And it arrives on my doorstep right now. Look down in your flow, see the energies, Allow yourself to be at your front door right now, opening it. And there is a beautiful, beautiful, old fashioned string tied package. It glows with life and beauty. And it is the next step delivered to you. You pick up the package, the string falls open in your fingers, and there it is, this beautiful light next step. And you say, I'm ready. And we're already in it. We are already there, already. Doing is changing. My life is changing. I am evolving. This is evolving. We are doing it. And it is working. It's working. It's working. It's working. It's working. You feel that joy? Yeah. You feel that joy? It's working. Confirmation spills over you like yellow golden sunshine. It's working. It's working. It's working. Not only can I trust this, I do. And now that I see it and feel it, I can't believe I ever had any bit of resistance in me to it. It's working. That's the feeling I hold now. So committed, so excited, so ready and allowing. Develop, evolve, grow, expand. We're in this together, and it is right, and it is perfect in every way. And that's the feeling we hold even now, feeling your awareness return, coming back from flow and opening your eyes. Welcome back. If you enjoyed this flow dream, I want you to know that I have excerpted it and I will be making it available@flowdreaming.com for you to purchase, download and listen to anytime you want, all the time you want. No having to fast forward or scroll through podcasts to get it. It's called nurturing and trusting your dream. How you like that? You'll also be able to get it on the app. So if you're on your phone, your mobile device, just go to the app store, download the flow dreaming app, and you'll be able to find it there as well, where you can listen to it, create playlists around it. So I decided to do that because after I recorded this, I thought to myself, oh, that was so delicious. Oh, I love it. And I realized the real heart of this flow dream is about nurturing and trusting your dream. It really is right. Creative nurturing time should get you to that place where you are not holding something back anymore. You are trusting it and allowing its growth. You want to break your pattern. You want to get past a block. That's a big one right there. Your life is ready to evolve something for you, but you're not. Cause you're scared. Work with this flow dream. Work with this mindset. And I really would love to know what's gonna happen for you, what this will lead to in your life. As always, I love hearing from you. You guys, you can post anytime on Facebook at iloveflowdreaming. The other quick request that I have for you, similar to last week, please, please, please go download five more episodes of this show. Download them onto your phone. Subscribe if you haven't subscribed. This is going to help me in one of my pet projects right now, which is to find a new niche home in the big mighty world of iTunes for this program. And you can't do it alone. I need you guys. Help you guys. Oh, boy. That wasn't right, was it, you guys? If my kids said that, I would have busted them. All right, I love you all. I hope you really enjoy this. And we'll be back next time for another episode of Flow Dreaming. Hi, my dears. Would you like to work with me privately one on one? Because I would like to work with you. In fact, I usually have one or two spots open for this kind of deep, transformative one on one work with me. We go deep into you, your life, where you're Going where you've been and what's holding you back. We'll spend hours together going into flow where I personally lead you, guide you through the experience, guide you into the next step into creating these custom crafted Flow dreams just for you. Now, if you know anything about me, you know that I have been doing this work for a long, long time. So I bring all of this knowledge, experience, both real world and port practical in terms of going big business, building whatever it is that you're trying to create, the deep simmering desire in your heart, I will help you get it into the world in a much, much bigger way than it is now. All it takes is you trusting yourself that you can do it, that we can do this together, and that it's going to be worth it to you to make this kind of inner investment your life. Look, we're in a new decade. When is it going to happen for you? When is it going to be time for you to reach out and really give your extraordinary greatness into this world? If you're interested in becoming one of my private, personal students, all you have to do is go to flowdreaming.com coaching or send me an email summerlowdreaming.com so if you're ready to really knock it out, go big. You've seen what I've done. You want to have a similar plan of your own to follow, then I am here for you in private coaching. I've got your back.