#637: Bountiful Receiver

So for a long time, I was not a very good receiver. I'm still not that great, but I definitely was not a good receiver. I've been working on that. It's funny because in our world where we co create and we manifest and we program our futures and we focus on changing and developing and growing who we are, we're often in a state of asking. But then when we ask, we feel like maybe I shouldn't. Maybe I'm asking too much. Maybe I'm being one of those people who just ask and ask and ask and we hold back. How do you get the things that you want in your heart and in life when you have a hard time receiving them if your wishes are actually granted? Let's find out.

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. 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.

So welcome to episode 637, Bountiful Receiver. And I think this is gonna be a good one now, like a lot of my recent episodes, yes, this one is also based on a new playlist that is out@flowdreaming.com. we'll talk about that a bit later, but I want to give you a backstory about why I want to talk about receiving. I have been doing a lot of writing lately. Obviously, I've been doing a lot of recording with all these new playlists, but I've also been writing. I realized that I released my last book in 2009. That's like a decade ago. And it's so funny because for the last decade I've been racing just to catch up with that book in terms of working with clients and starting programs and teaching, teaching, teaching, which has been consuming me. So when I finally looked up I from what I was doing, I realized, gosh, a couple more books have been brewing in me. Sort of like being pregnant for 10 years and not realizing you were pregnant, and then. And then you get the news, oh, my God, honey, you're having twins. I'm having. I'm having twins. I'm having triplets, truth be told. But twins are closer on the horizon. And one of the stories that I realized was really prominent in one of my new books here talks about 2015. 2015 for me, feels like yesterday. It also feels like decades ago. It feels like I was a different woman. I was a different woman. You can actually hear it, you know, that's the one crazy, weird, beautiful, odd, scary thing about this podcast, because you can really, like, go back to 2005. You get to kind of see someone grow up through all these episodes, these narrations, and 2015, I was a different person. It's the year I got cancer. I was in my early 40s, kids in grade school, and I found myself lying in bed after surgery unable to do much of anything because after that kind of surgery, they put drains in you and you're pumping blood out of you and gunk. It's just weird. And my friends were showing up at the house bringing casseroles and pies and complete dinners. And sometimes they were cooking them themselves, and sometimes they were just going out to someplace local and picking up a dinner for us. And the doorbell would ring and my kids were so excited, they'd run out and answer. And some days I'd actually drag myself out. And I remember this very clearly. I was completely bald. I was wearing my husband's bathrobe at the time because he had the nice long, blue, soft, like, you know, soft terry cloth robe. My robes were all cute. They were not good for lounging. And so I'd wear his old bathrobe out, this bald lady inching toward the door.

And I'd take the food from their.

Hands and they'd say, I hope you're all right. And I'd say, I'm doing okay, I'm doing great. And I'd think, why did you bring me food? I mean, how embarrassing. I gotta get out of bed. And what do you. I mean, I can take care of my family, they can take care of themselves. Why are you doing this? And one of my friends organized an online website where people could sign up for the days that they were going to bring us food. And I was grateful and I was.

Embarrassed.

And I realized, well, of course this is one time in your life where you're, you know, you can have this now, Summer, it's all right. You know, you're asking your husband to take care of you and to work and go to work and take care of kids and pick up, up from school and make all the meals and do. I mean, you can ask. But I couldn't. I couldn't ask. And people would say, what do you want us to do for you? And I'd say, I don't know. Just, I don't know, Whatever. Whatever you feel like. And gosh, you know, if you guys have ever encountered somebody who's had surgery or cancer or anything like that, you know, they've probably said something similar. They didn't say. They didn't have a list. Like, well, honest to God, no one's done the laundry in about two weeks. I could use the dishes done. I could use dinners for the next few nights. You could help me with my kids and just watch them for an hour or two. Give my husband a break. Like, we don't have that list, but these are the things we need. Here's the problem. Some of us are bad receivers. Like, we're terrible, terrible at receiving. We can give and we do give all day long. But when you've got someone showing up at your door with a hot gas roll, you just mumble and say thank you and you feel embarrassed. And then we go right back to our la la land of I'm going to ask the universe for money and a great job and all these wonderful things. But on a basic, fundamental, fundamental, fundamental. On a basic, fundamental level, we can't even receive something as silly as food. What's going on? So I know this was a long preamble, but that's what still goes through my mind all these years later. And I think too. And I've been writing about how people will send me letters in the mail, and people have even tithed me, and I'm like, I'm not a preacher. You can't be doing that. What are you doing? I'm not that important. And I've had to realize. I've worked on this. Taking a step back and realizing it's not about me. Stop it, Summer. It's not about me. Someone had an impact. Someone felt something. Someone felt moved to say thank you, to acknowledge that impact. I need to receive that. I need to humble myself to their awareness, to their gratitude, and accept. And if I can't do that, then I really am all up in my butt with ego. I need to learn how to accept this and to acknowledge these other people's wisdom and intelligence, love. I need to let them express it. I need to give them that from me. I need to give them the ability to give to me.

Isn't that funny? It's like full circle.

I give to them by letting them have the pleasure, the joy, the sense of remuneration and giving back. I give. I give them that by allowing them.

To give to me.

And this is when it's like turning a coin over in your hands. Which is the top and which is the front? It's all the same coin. And I've worked really hard to remind myself of this because for years, the sort of, you know, ethereal aspects of it, the manifestational aspects were, I give to the world. I give myself in exchange to the world. Every day. I give tons out of myself. Of course, I should be receiving tons back. Equal and opposite measure, right? I'm like, yeah, I get that. I give out of myself. I should receive money back. I give wisdom. I should receive joy back or something. But when it came to the smallest, most basic things in my life, I realized, no, I can't let you give that to me. I'm too smart for that, too good for that. I don't need it. Someone else needs it. Don't give that to me. Stop it. How could I be sending this kind of conflict out into the world of expecting that I could receive all the biggest, brightest, and best and most wonderful return for myself? But when people I love, and frankly, even total strangers, showed up at my door sometimes, you know, a friend of a friend, they're like, there's a girl in town with cancer. She's got a couple young kids. You want to bring her some food? And people are like, yes, that would make me feel amazing. And I open the door, I'm like, who are you? Like, I brought you something for you and your family. And it would make me want to cry. Still makes me want to cry just talking about it. That's when I realized, I've got more. I've got more ways to go on this. Being a good receiver is an art. Being a good receiver is not a stingy person. It's not the person that we think of. If we're bad receivers, which is, I'm not going to be like them. They ask for everything. They don't support themselves. They mooch off Mom. They expect the world. They never give back. Ugh. That's not you. That's not me. That's not who we are. But sometimes we're so afraid of being perceived a certain way that we won't even let ourselves receive at all. And when that happens, we deny other people, people outside of us from receiving the pleasure of giving. We deny them that. We yank it out of their hands. I had to learn to be grateful, to give people the joy of giving to me. I had to learn it. I'm still learning it. I'm learning it. Whenever I receive something from someone and I take a few minutes and I don't just set it aside and say, oh, I'm sure that was obligatory. You ever get Birthday gifts or. Oh, I'm sure you just got that. No, I don't discount or I try not to. I look at it and I take it in, and I think, someone gave me this. This is part of them. This is part of their time. This is part of their life. It's part of their money. It's part of the hours they sweated at work for this. Thank you. Oh, my God. It's never the thing you hold in your hand. It's the person. Now take this and extend. This starts with the individual, right? That's the easiest way to conceptualize this. But from there it goes to. If you can't even receive from a person without feeling guilt or kind of weird or like, ah. Or just kind of discounting it, shuffling it aside, you know, the perfunctory, oh, thank you. How in hell are you going to receive from the universe? When the universe gives you something amazing? How are you gonna receive that? Are you gonna say thank you? I enjoy the pleasure that you, the universe, had in giving this to me. Whoa. Just whoa. I enjoy the pleasure that you, the universe, had giving this to me.

And I acknowledge you, and I'm glad.

I let you feel that way. I'm glad I was the vehicle that.

Allowed you to feel that way.

Now, that is so opposite how so many of us feel about the universe. Well, we have to take. We have to pull. We have to get our little pieces out of it. Doesn't want to give to us. We've got to earn it. You ever thought that maybe life experienced the same pleasure that another person would? That it was able to gift you something and you could take it all in, and that by receiving it, you did not become a bad person, a mooter, a guilty person? Did it ever occur to you that those feelings diminish the giver? Diminish the giver? I am presuming the giver is giving because they love me, they care about me, and they want the good feelings in themselves from knowing that they express that love for me. How is that different than flow? Life, God, source, your future, how is it different? I wouldn't diminish that. This is why becoming a great receiver is amazing. And I know that you're still going to tussle in your head. Some of you with, yeah, but I can't take too much. Ooh, bad people do that. They're the welfare people. They're the moochers, they're the. Oh, let's take this out of our head. That is a lack world you're living in you know me, I talk about lack thinking constantly. And a lack world says there's not enough. If I take more than my share, I become one of the bad people. So I'm only going to take X amount. Anything more than that will make me a bad person. So you put the brakes on things. You put the limit on things. Meanwhile, you're simultaneously saying, how come I don't have a great relationship? How come I don't have, you know, the love and the friends that I want? How come I don't have work that I just love? How come? How come you forget? You put the brakes on? You forget the push pull that you've just set up in your relationship. Here's the thing. As long as you're always giving back, you don't need to worry about how much is being given to you or that it's too much. Do you give back? Do you show up? And if you feel that you're secretly selfish, well, in fact, you may well be, or you may not be. You may have a wrong idea about who you are picked up somewhere far back in time. But if you can check in and say, I give all the time. I give my love. I give a listening ear. I give my money when I have it. I give my time when I have it. I give praise, I give acknowledgement. I show up. I give productivity, I give output. I give value, right? And this is, this is in all areas of our lives. I give productivity and value to my boss. I give showing up and a listening ear to my friends. I give love and guidance to my children. I give, I give, I give, I give. You know, if you're giving enough, you know it. And you know, if you're not, you know, if you're one of those people who instead saying, fill me up, fill me up, fill me up, you know that too because you never feel filled. But if you give, give, give, and then the universe is like, we want to give back. And you're like, well, I don't know about that, only so much, but I'm secretly going to yearn for all of it, but you're not going to give it to me. And then I'm going to get frustrated at you and then I'm going to think you just won't give it to me, then I'm going to give up. That is the cycle to break. That's the pattern. That's the pattern. And that's sort of like my books, frankly. Told you, I'm writing. It's a book about patterns. It's One, it's a big one. How to be a good receiver, a bountiful receiver. So let's think about ways that we receive. Right? And this is what prompted me to put the playlist together. And if you listened to the episode before this confident number 636, you'll notice that what I did is I kind of broke it down into three different aspects of confidence. Well, I want to break down receiving as well. When I put my playlist together, I brought in three flow dreams. And by the way, if you don't know how to flow dream, it is a technique for manifesting, co creating. It is gorgeous. It changes you from the inside out. It communicates to the universe. The universe will hear you. Source will hear you. God will hear you. Your life can move in this new direction. As a result, when you start practicing flow dreaming and flow thinking, being in a state of flow and ease and receptivity. So go to the website flow dreaming.com or grab the app. There's actually two apps you can get. One is a shop, which is kind of a player. It's an MP3 player. Basically it lets you organize your flow dreams and create your own playlists and so forth. And then the other one is an app that has all of these podcasts, actually my very, very oldest episodes all in there. Anyway, go get the free kit that teaches you how. That's what I was leading to. But what's in this playlist are three super lucky winner's mindset and every day is my birthday. So super lucky is the oldest of the three super lucky Reminds me the universe gifts me things all the time. I might call it luck, but it's just gifts. Why? Because the universe is super, super abundant. It's filled, it's chock full of everything. If the universe was a very limited place, there would be nine planets and one sun and nothing else outside. That would be it. We'd look up and it'd be like the Truman show, like a giant bubble, like. Nah, you just got a little bit. Work with it, folks. But we don't even know where the universe ends. The universe's end. Billions, trillions septillions of suns, galaxies, planets. Imagine if each one was as loaded as ours. Oh my God. You can't even conceive of it yet here on Earth, we tend to think there's not enough. We're gonna use it all up. You know what? Maybe we will. But there's also the understanding that everything recycles. It will still be there, just in a different form. It is Continuing to remain abundant. Super lucky is a sense that you can cultivate in yourself, which says, yes, I'm lucky. I'm just a great receiver. If something is there that's going to fit me and match me and help me and grow me and delight me, it comes in, period. That means I won the cakewalk. That means that I got really lucky and I got that job interview. That means I was the luckiest person on earth that I was in that cafe at that moment that that wonderful partner of mine walked in. I'm super lucky. Good receivers are naturally lucky. What it just means is I have no blocks to receiving anything and everything that feels good that works for me, that I need. Pretty cool, huh? Right? Wouldn't you love to live in that state of being all the time? Well, guess what? You can work on it, practice it. Flow, dream on it, get in that emotional space over and over again. How about the next one? Winner's mindset, right? I made this one because I realized some people, they want to test the universe, right? They want to go out there and they want to throw those slots, you know, throw the money in that slot machine. They want. They want to win the. The. The prize package. They want to get the. The free car. They want to get the thing. And it's joyful for you to go out and gamble and try and get the thing, see if you'll get the thing, right. It's a kind of pleasurable exercise for some people. Winners mindset is, Dan, I'm damn lucky, and I know this works. One of the very first emails I received many years ago came from a gal named lynn who won one point. I believe it was $1.6 million. She psyched herself up on the flow dreams. She went into the casino, and she walked out with a giant, oversized check. And she sent me this email afterwards saying, thank you and a photo of her and her check. Winner's mindset is, why not you win, right? Winner's mindset means there's an abundance of winning. I sound like a politician. You know who I'm talking about? An abundance of winning. We're all winners. But there is. It's only when you feel lack thinking there's not enough winners. Nobody wins. There's not enough to win. Fact is, people are winning things right this second all over the globe, over and over and over and over and over and over. You ever know somebody in your life who. You're just like, you're lucky. You win everything. You go to a raffle, like, you're. You're At a work event and they have a raffle and they. They of course win. You go to the wedding and they win the centerpiece. It's like they just all the time, like, why are you so lucky? They're like, I don't know. I just win things. Guess what? They're carrying around in themselves and understanding that I just win things. The universe is looking for the path of least resistance. They're going to go to the person who says, I just win things instead of you, because you're like, no, not enough to go around. I never win things. Universe is like, path of least resistance. Yeah, I know. Kind of like, mind blowing. Why not start thinking lucky and being lucky? Here's the last area based on a flow dream again called every day is my birthday. When I was playing around with receiving, how do I receive? Super lucky is sort of telling the universe that I can receive. Winner's mindset means that there is enough. There's no winner, loser. It's winner, winner, winner, winner. What about every day is my birthday? Every day is my birthday. When I made it, when I was thinking, it brings me to a place in myself. And by the way, you can do this yourself, right? You don't need the flow dream that I made. You can use it if you'd like, but you can do this in you. What is your birthday? It's the most special day you have. Do you have one good birthday memory? A feeling of, I'm gonna get toys, I have a cake, all my friends are coming over, I'm the center of attention. And yes, I know birthdays are high drama, and you may have cried and stuffed cake in your little buddy's face, but nonetheless, every day is my birthday. Every day. I deserve presents. I don't deserve presents and good things just one time a year. My abundant universe gives me gifts all the time. Every day of the year. You know, it's funny. It's us humans that limit our gift giving to birthdays and, you know, a holiday, Christmas, Hanukkah, whatever. That's made up, right? We made that up. Some of us give things to our friends and family and people we love all the time. Here I was thinking of you. I wanted you to have this. Every day is my birthday says I deserve to receive every day. It busts you through that wall of I can't open the door to receive that meal. Why not? It's your birthday. Oh, it's my birthday. Of course I will. Of course I can. Oh, that's so sweet of you. Thank you. You notice the Difference like, oh, of course I would on my birthday. If you didn't open the door to receive that meal on your birthday, you would be a real jerk. Well, why not make every day your birthday? It will ask you to get through feelings and limitations in yourself about what you allow yourself to receive. But you will begin the journey of becoming a great receiver. The art form of becoming a beautiful receiver, a receiver that inspires love and joy and happiness in the heart of every giver, whether the giver is a person or the universe itself. Kind of seems like it's worth a shot, doesn't it? Kind of seems like we don't want to stay in that old place of not being able to receive and always being tense and worried that we don't get our needs met and we're not getting what we want. We want it, but then we, oh, I don't know if I can have it or if I should have it.

So start the journey.

You know how you start it? Of course you do. You flow dream into it. All the great knowledge, all the stuff that goes pop, pop, pop and opens up your head and your mind, it's great. But if you don't practice it, if you don't practice the other feelings, the new feelings, if you don't practice the cultivate how you want to feel, then they don't stick, they don't stay. It just becomes more great. Stuff you read or heard that doesn't change you. You gotta practice. You gotta do the practice. Do the practice right. You brush your teeth every day. You brush your hair every day. I'm assuming you eat, you put your clothes on. How about you do a little something for your mind? You do a little something for your heart. You do a little something for growing that part of you and making it bigger and better and richer and more loving and more expansive. I think that's probably more important even than brushing your hair. I would gladly go around with unbrushed hair for years if I had to. If it meant that if I had to give that up or my growth becoming the person I want to be, yeah, I'd sacrifice my hair in a hot second. So I would love to see you flow dream. I would love to see you play with this playlist. It's called again Bountiful Receiver. You can find it@flowdreaming.com. if you can't get it or don't want to get it, it's fine. But use these different understandings, use these different nuances. Flow dream on it yourself. Flow Dreaming is easy. It's free, it's cheap, it's lifelong, it's real, it's impactful, and you can learn it. If this is your first introduction, it's not meditation, it's not guided visualization. It's not affirmations. It's its own beautiful being. You know, a zebra married a donkey married a horse kind of thing. That's flow dreaming. And you will be joining hundreds of thousands of people who've practiced it. There have been almost 3 million downloads of this, of this podcast alone over the years. So come join, come feel, come be with that. I'm gonna play a snippet of Every day is my birthday because like I've been doing recently, I wanna get you into the feeling of it. I wanna really bring it in. I want you to know what it's like to go beyond just learning something and saying, oh, my God, I feel. Whoa, what is that? So I'm going to play a portion of it, not the whole thing. If you want the whole thing, go to the website, but play a portion to get you enough to get you there and then let me know how it works for you. I love to hear back from you guys. You can email me anytime. Summer. Flow dreaming.com. you can leave a note for me on Facebook. I have a group, it's called I love Flow Dreaming. I just ask to be invited in. It's. It's an open group. I just have to let people in or not. Just to keep out, you know, all the spam bots and everything. And of course, me. School. I would love to see you guys there too. It is enrolling right now, which means I am inviting in a whole new group of gorgeous students. It is time to pivot. It is. The world is pivoting. You are. Get the tools you've always wanted. Get the resources you've always needed. Like, what could you do if you were really getting everything you needed to finally go where you wanted to go, change the way you wanted to change, you couldn't not do it. That's what I built me school for. It is so powerful. It is one of the best things you will ever do for you in your life. And if you're not sure, go ready all the testimonials. I've had hundreds and hundreds of students go through the program and I am looking forward to going through with you. You will not be the exception, the one it won't work for. You are going to be right in the thick of things. Your mindset, your heart, your energy, all ready to go. Okay, let's jump in now to a little taste of Every day is my birthday.

Every day is my birthday.

Abundance is mine.

A Flow Dream Close your eyes and relax. Release your abdomen, drop your shoulders and breathe deeply. Breathing in. And as you exhale, you feel your chest drop. Your neck melts and your jaw releases. You're relaxed. You're ready to flow, to let go and to walk into your year ahead. As you walk into this year, you use your imagination. Breathing, relaxed, imagining, drifting, walking, walking forward on a path that's beautiful, supple, straight and broadcast as far as you can see into the distance. This beautiful path continues onward. You notice the scene around you. Perhaps it's rolling green hills. Perhaps it's stars and space and light. Perhaps it's beautiful light that shimmers. An otherworldly place, a place just outside of physical. A place that's deep and interconnected, that weaves itself in and through your physical reality. And yet it's on the other side. It's deeper in.

Rooted.

And a part of you is rooted there too. Living there, breathing through this space, experiencing it, programming within it. This is the you that walks, glides, strolls freely, effortlessly, forward. The path is filled with ease and light. You have this deep feeling in your heart, in your whole being. This is the ultimate path for me, the place of greatest ease, love, prosperity, security, safety, freedom. This is the path where all of my dreams are fulfilled easily, one after another. Whatever I dream of becomes whatever I ask for, winks into being, becomes embedded in this beautiful flow of my life and begins to grow and burst through into the physical surroundings, my physical, actual life. And as I move down this path, so easy, graceful and effortless, I can feel how it's also moving with me and under me and behind me, me and through me. It carries me. I go faster and further with it toward this place where everything is good and right. I feel this year opening in front of me. A new year of my life. A year that waits and beckons for me.

This could be any day of my life.

There was always a new year. Every day there is a new year. Another 365 days. Every day is my birthday. Every day is my new year. What happens in my new year? What is there? What do I call in? What am I longing for?

What's leaping up to express itself, itself.

Inside me and my life? What feelings am I craving? What if it happened this year would so satisfy me, finally fulfill me, give me those feelings I'm yearning for, that I've been working for, wanting? First I identify one big and beautiful feeling. If this just happened, if I just had this feeling all through my life, everything would change. Everything would be 100% better. Everything would just feel so good.

I'd feel so proud, so relaxed, so relieved. That's the feeling.

That's the feeling I get this year.

And that, my friends, is a sample of. Every day is my birthday. I hope you enjoyed that. I love that one. It goes on. There's a lot more to it, but that gives you a really good taste. And I hope it got you into that space in your heart where you can say, you know what? I this is gonna be the year that I really learn how to let stuff in, how to let people in, let opportunity in, let abundance in. I allow myself to have it. I accept it as much as wants to give itself to me, which is a ton, ton, ton, ton. All right, so we're gonna wrap up today. This has been a beautiful episode with you all as I thought it would be. I had a good feeling about this one. I hope you guys enjoyed it too. Like I said, you can always drop me a note summerlowdreaming.com or see me on Facebook or of course reach out to me for mi school and I will see all of you. Gosh. Next time for another episode coming right up of Flow Dreaming. And if you feel propelled, impelled, if you want to be a giver, please, please, please subscribe to this and leave a note. Leave a review right now on Google Play or in itunes. That will be your way of giving to me. Your thank you for anything that you received or felt during. Not just this episode, but all of them. It means way more to me than I think you realize for you to leave those words. I will receive them. Love to you all and I'll see you next time. Hey friends, let's just take a second to point out a few really awesome resources for you every week. You hear me do this program as I wax on about some particular aspect of energy or life or growth. But I also have an amazing website that's filled with a decade of information all on the same things, including the Flow Dreaming shop, where you can find all sorts of flow dreams, over 150 of them, that will help you fix up and shape up all different areas of your life. By the way, all the flow dreams can be listened to on your phone or mobile device. You just have to have the app for that. So if you don't have that yet, just open up your app store in whatever kind of device you're on and download flow, dreaming you'll find a couple of apps. Actually, they're both free, and that will help you get even more deep into the world of flow. And with that, we're back to the program.