649: Super Chill: How to Use Flow to Decrease Anxiety and Boost Positive Emotions

So, feeling anxious? Welcome to the world of anxiety or stress. What about stress? Stress is a form of anxiety. It's where you are in a state. And I'm talking about chronic stress. It's where you're in a state of looping. Essentially, anxiety is a state of looping. Stress is a state of looping. It's the feeling of a negative emotion that you get stuck in. Well, we're gonna take care of that. Gonna give you some new ideas. Well, we're gonna take care of that. I'm gonna give you some new ideas today in Flow Dreaming for how you can stop the loop. You can check the loop, you can experience the anxiety, you can experience the chronic stress. And another part of you recognizes it and says, enough. I choose to feel something else now. Can't be done. Let's find out. Slow 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. So I love. I love the topic of today's episode. It's number 649, and it's called Super Chill. How to use flow to decrease anxiety and boost positive emotions. Before we dig into this, couple things. My background. You guys know I'm not a therapist. I am. I don't know what I am. I received the information about what flow is and the flow method in Flow Dreaming. I've written books about it. I've talked about it, preached about it for a good 16 or 17 years now, perhaps, perhaps longer. I need to keep re adding this up in my head. And I've worked with thousands of people and have read their energy sense their energy, felt their flow, felt the blockages, felt their patterns, felt their limitations, felt their ceilings, and have acquired this library in me now of very interesting human behaviors, our behaviors, spiritual behaviors, physical behaviors, mental behaviors, all of it. So I bring that to the table. When we talk about anxiety, we talk about chronic stress. I also bring my own personal experience, chronic stress and anxiety and depression, ocd. These are rife in my family. I myself am no stranger to depression and anxiety. My son experiences high anxiety and a pretty severe form of ocd. So I've had a lot of time to see what this is like. I've also seen it in the heads and minds of all the people I've read and worked with. And there is a commonality that I just can't escape of. What is anxiety made of? What is chronic stress made of? And that, for me, is a gorgeous question to ask. Because when we start asking that, we start to discover how we can work with it. And I don't mean work with it in terms of medication, of course. Many of you, I never tell people to, you know, go against anything that their therapist or their doctor says. Medication has a very important role for many people. But there is something else you can do all by yourself, some on your own. And it starts with asking the question, what is anxiety? Why do I experience it? What is chronic stress? Why am I addicted to it? Why can't I get away from it? What is that? What the heck is my mind doing? And this question for me is huge. In fact, this very episode is kind of a riff, you know, on a lot of these ideas, because that's what the podcast is, right? It's me kind of riffing and exploring these things. But I explore it much deeper. I have a course, or not a course. It's a membership, basically. It's inexpensive. It's called Flow On. And every month, they get a new course from me, a new teaching, a series of teachings. And I recorded one called Super Chill for them. And for anyone else, by the way, you can go to flowdreaming.com, look under courses and masterclasses. You can get this course if this is intriguing to you and it feels right. But today is a kind of snippet of that, a snapshot of that to get you moving, to get you rolling in the right direction with your anxiety or chronic stress. So I lump these two together, for starters, because chronic stress is a kind of habitual. I almost think of it like an addiction. It's a state of being that you become so tolerant of that it becomes normal. You hate it, breaks you down, wears you down, fries your nerves, makes you irritable and snippy, snappy with your family. But you're used to it. It's who you are. And when you don't have chronic stress, you experience an actual sense of loss. Oh, my God. Everything is going too good. Wait, I can take a little time off, but not much. Hold on. Nothing stressful is going on. When's the other shoe gonna drop? You guys, we've all experienced this. We mistrust it when we're not stressed because we think we're missing something. It's gonna catch us. It's gonna bite Us in the butt. That's why it's chronic. It's a habitual feeling system that's been cultivated inadvertently inside of ourselves for a whole plethora of reasons, which I can't possibly go into in this show today. But at least you start to know what you're working with. So I lump it with anxiety, because similarly, anxiety is a habitual feeling that in many cases started because we were concerned about something. We wanted to protect ourselves. We needed to be on guard. What if that happens? Man, I am ready. I am standing vigilant, and I'm at the gatehouse, you know, just looking for this thing. But then yourself said, well, why don't you always keep that way? How about if you just stay at the gatehouse? How about if you just stay on that anxiety, you know, space? Because you never know what's gonna happen, right? You know, you could trip and twist your ankle. You could lose your job. You could eat, you know, expired food. I don't know. Shoot. We better be anxious all the time. What if everything that's coming for us is not going to be good? What if there was a coming storm? What if I have to constantly be in a state of preparation and acknowledgement? That's anxiety. Anxiety. What if, what if, what if? Or I said this thing. I did this thing. I looked backward. I didn't like it. Oh, my gosh, what did people think? Oh, no. Oh, no. Or I'm gonna die. I found a mole. The mole looks terrible. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. How do I know I'm going to. Because I've had things this before. Because this is how it happens. This is what happens. Around and around and around we go. It's a chronic state, a chronic condition. Just like stress. And like stress, we become so used to it that sometimes we even forget that we're in it. And then, you know, it's like rubbing two boulders together. Over time, those boulders become grains of sand, and that becomes our emotional capacity. It's gone from being beefy and tough to a little grain of sand, constantly just still rubbing, rubbing, rubbing, rubbing, rubbing a hole in your very being. So what's the good news? Now that I've just, like, totally made you feel like, oh, God, yeah, yeah, you nailed it. What's the good news? These are both emotional states that you have say so over. You have say so now, excluding the biological triggers for them. Okay, there are biological triggers, and sometimes they require biological answers, physical answers, medicinal answers, naturopathic answers, et cetera. Hormonal answers. But there is also the state of anxiety and stress that has a spiritual component, an emotional component, an energetic component. Because when we talk about flow, we talk about the energy of who you are. We talk about that beautiful flowing template, that blueprint of you that flows through everything that you are. It's your mind, it's your heart, it's your body all wrapped up together, saying, I am a being, a great being, a consciousness. And my consciousness is experiencing continued stress and continued anxiety. Do I want to keep this? Is this helping me? Was it helping me? And then it stopped. If I try to stop it, why do I keep going back to it? Like an abused person going back to an abusive relationship? What is up with that? Gosh, I want to change me. And you know what? You can. You really, really, really, really can. First thing I want you to think about is the characteristic of these two conditions. There's always a sense of looping. You guys know this. Sometimes I call it head spin. And the very mental people that I. That I meet and work with, everything is up in their heads, goes round and round. The same thoughts, round and round. And then they come to come up with answers. They forget that they came up with the answers. They go around again, come up with other answers, around and around, and they get paralysis. I can't make a decision. I don't know what to do. I don't know if I'm right. I don't know if this is good. Around and around and around, around, around, around we go. Anxiety and stress are similar. I'm anxious. I'm going to get hurt. Something's wrong. Something bad will happen to me. I'm not enough. I won't be loved. I can't get what I need. What if this happens? What if that happens? I'm stressed out. I'm on guard. I'm constantly feeling like I can't stop. I'm in a grind. I can't stop it. If I do, something bad will happen. I'll lose something. My job, my house, my health. I can't stop. I'm stressed. I've got so much I'm holding. I can't put any of it down. I can't. I can't. I can't. Loop, loop, loop, loop, loop. Your emotional system is in a loop. This loop can be stopped. What I would like to share with you is that by using flow, dreaming and using flow, it's like putting a wrench in the gears. It stops the machine. And it stops it in a way that is beautiful. It stops it In a way where you say, oh, well, that's funny. This feels weird. I didn't realize that I actually had power over this. Oh, maybe. Maybe I do. So you have been communicating with your flow, communicating with your future, communicating with your higher self, communicating with your emotional self in a very one sided monosyllabic conversation for a long time. Stress, stress, stress. Anxious, anxious, worry. Worry, anxious, stress. Repetitive looping. One sided. What you're discovering is that you've been programming yourself. Every time you feel it, you're programming. If you were a computer genius, you'd be typing in the same darn code over and over and over and over and over. And then somebody taps you on the shoulder and says, do you want a new code? You're like, yes, please, I want a new code. You can have a new code. How? You just start feeling it. You just start doing it. This is where flow leads you into the new emotional states that you're actually looking for. This sounds so simple. I know, but you guys, I've worked with many therapists. Many therapists, actually, it's come to my attention, actually have been getting my float rooms and giving them to their clients. It makes me so happy, so proud. I'm like a proud mama hen. You know, it's a modality that works. It's a modality that says if you want to feel a new emotion, you don't sit passively waiting for it to come to you. And you don't even always have to do all the work of figuring out where the bad emotion is coming from and healing the bad emotion and getting over the bad emotion and staying focused on the bad emotion until you heal and get over the bad emotion. There's actually a third way if you want to experience a different feeling. You just start feeling it. You don't wait for life to give it to you. This is a principle of manifesting, by the way, which is something that really flow is the expert in. I mean, that's the basis of what flow dreaming and the flow method is. If you want a new feeling, you start feeling it. You say, wow, summer, how can I not feel anxious? You can. You practice the feeling. And the first time you practice the feeling, I feel incredibly peaceful. I feel so serene. I feel joyful, I feel happy, I feel at ease. I feel like everything is working out for me. I feel like life is, well, nothing bad is going to happen. I'm right where I need to be. Everything is exactly as it should be right now. You're like, God, I'd love to feel that Way great. Feel that way. At first you'll say, okay, I'll try to feel that way, but I'm lying to myself. I am joking. In reality, I'm still stressed out and anxious. No, you're not, actually, in reality, for the moments that you're feeling something else, that is who you now are. Whatever you feel, whatever you become, whatever you think is what you are. I don't care if you spend 99% of your time in a whole. Can I say shithole? Oh, my gosh, I said it. Okay, I'll have to put an explicit, explicit word rating on this one. But if you spend all 99% of your time in the shithole of your thinking, then 99% of you is that. But you spend 1% of you feeling these other feelings. That is you. You made it. It's real. It's coded in you. It happened to you. It became part of you. It is you. Your memories are part of you. They're still there. They are you. So what we're talking about here is the old scales, right? You know, the scales of justice, right? You put the crappy stuff on one side. You put the good feeling stuff on the other. How do your scales look? Would you like to tip them? Would you like to change them? How do you do that? You practice the good feeling over and over and over and over. And then one day, you are in flow and you are pouring out, streaming out great feelings. And believe me, you don't have to know what you're feeling good about. Get over that. Just feel good. Feel happy. I am well. Everything is good. There comes a day, there comes a time, a moment when you say, maybe this is true. Maybe I am feeling good. Maybe I am safe. Maybe nothing bad has happened to me. And you begin rewriting not only the neural pathways of your brain, but the emotional, the energetic, the spiritual pathways of your brain as well. When you want to change, you got to do it on all levels. That's why sometimes just changing physically isn't enough. Because then we just snap back. Our emotional self snaps back to the same old rut, the same old ground in path. Our spiritual self does the same thing. So that's why I advocate practice all levels. If you want to turn the emotional direction of your life, practice it in flow. Tell your life, tell yourself, no, this is how I want to feel. This is how I do feel. I feel like this. Now, the beauty of this is that you're actually practicing something that feels pretty darn good. It's very different than having to go back and revisit all the crummy reasons why your life sucks. Because of your parents and your upbringing and your lack of opportunity and discrimination and, you know, economic factors and all the stuff that life kind of puts around us that makes us feel constrained, unseen, unsupported. But you can change that. And you start by feeling, I'm supported, I'm not anxious. I can relax and drop a few things. Nothing bad will happen. I'm no longer stressed. You see what we're doing? Yes, it's a mindset shift, but it goes deeper. It's an emotional shift, it's an energetic shift. And the more you practice it, the more you're building it. You're scooping sand on the beach into a big old pile over and over. And then after a while, you can't help it, you've got a sand castle. Look how that happened. It's not hard, but it takes you choosing it. It takes you saying, I'm tired of being stressed out. I'm tired of living like, I have to keep all this going or I can't make enough or have enough or something bad will happen or I'm gonna lose this or lose that. I'm tired of this. I'm done. Isn't there another way to live? The answer is yes. You're like, well, how come life isn't giving it to me? Because you're not giving it to life. Starts with you, honey bunny. Starts with you. You give it to life first. Don't wait for life to give it to you. You give it first. You're in charge. You've got the power. I've got the power. I hear all this weird stuff as I'm looking and talking and downloading all this. It's kind of funny. Okay, at least I amuse myself even if I don't amuse you Anyway, so how do I know this works? Because I practice it. Because I do it. Otherwise I am a crazy, stressed out, control freak. A type personality. And fortunately, my practice in flow dreaming over the years has modified my personality tremendously. And I'm so grateful that it has because I'm a much happier person. Right, Talk about being a few percents happier. How about a whole lot percents happier? How about living in a whole different way? Living with joy, hope, expectation, Having more good things flood into your life. Why? Because you've let go of that clinching tightness. You've let go of that feeling that everything isn't gonna work and it's bad and it's gonna hurt and you're gonna die and you're gonna lose it. No one's gonna love you. You let go of it and you said, I decided I don't wanna have these anymore. I don't wanna have this anymore. I don't care how true it seems. I'm gonna start working to make this untrue. Period. Oh, it all starts there. So make that decision. Make that right now. Right now. Then I encourage you, get the resources on board. Now, you guys know, of course, Flow Dreaming is my number one resource. I really encourage you to get the super Chill master course. Work on it. But you can also go the Flow Dreaming library. I have Flow Dreams. They're pretty cheap. They start at like 10 bucks. And they're for anxiety, therefore stress. Begin working with them. If you don't know what Flow Dreaming is, go to my website. I got a kit. Teaches you everything. It's for free. I've always taught the technique 100% for free. And once you learn it, you never have to purchase anything ever. If you don't want to, I just want you to begin using it in your life. Use it for yourself. But if you want, I invite you. Come in. I've got a lot more and a system worked out that you can travel through to really, really help yourself. Now, if Flow Dreaming doesn't speak to you and Flow Dreaming is very emotional, it's daydreamy. It's creative, it's fun, it feels good. Right? That's why it's my preferred method. Some of you guys prefer meditation. I just happen to not be so good at meditation because my mind is always blah, blah, blah blah blah blah blah, blah, blah, blah blah blah blah blah. It wants to help me out way too much. So that's not necessarily my number one. Maybe it's yours. Use that modality. Use tapping. Use mindfulness. By the way, mindfulness goes really well with Flow Dreaming. Sometimes before I start a flow session, I go into a state of mindfulness, very present, very still. I pull my mind back from the future and away from the past. And I pull it right here into my body, into the moment. And then from that space, that quiet. Then I move into my flow and my flow Practice. Find a technique that will work with you and for you. But know that you can do this. Know it starts with the choice in you to do it. When you say, I no longer tolerate constant anxiety, fear, panic attacks, biting, grinding, stress, exhaustion, burnout. I no longer will tolerate this. What do I need to change in my life? Oh, that is the pathway to glory. I encourage you so we're not going to flow today because I have ample resources already better flow dreams than I would ever do. Even with you. Right here. They're on the website. You can listen to samples of them if you want. But I've already given you enough, giving you the gist of what it's like to do it for yourself. It can be done. You can remodel it. And here's another really important takeaway. Working on anxiety and stress takes all components, all parts of you, all of your bodies. Your physical body, your mental body, your emotional body, your spiritual body. If you don't work on all of them, it's like leaving two or three of them stuck in the same rut. You're gonna have that pull back to where you used to be and you're gonna say, how come I went back to it again? Well, that's why. So what I'm trying to share with you today is that the emotional, spiritual part, even the mental part can be changed. And flow dreaming is a good way to do it and or whatever modality speaks to your heart. But it starts with this. Not waiting for you to someday reach those good feelings for life to change, to allow those feelings to final come to you. For all the things that aren't working to finally get solved, for those good feelings to finally come to you. Put the cart before the horse, Start the feelings now. Then let life shape itself and match itself to you. Instead of what you've been doing, which is the other way around, you've been matching yourself to your life, which no doubt is full of things that could be harrowing and scary and so forth. Change the dynamic, reverse the roles. You feel good, you feel relaxed, you feel peaceful, you feel guided, you feel held, you feel protected, you feel good, you feel free. You feel like I don't have to do everything and everything worked out. You feel delighted, surprised. You feel good. That's the essence of the work we do. Well, I hope you guys really enjoyed Flow Dreaming today. Hope you enjoyed this little peek into working with your anxiety, working with your chronic stress as always. I'll be back next time with another topic, a little sliver, a section that I'll riff on about life and our personal growth and mindset and going big and abundance, thinking and getting rid of limitations and especially, especially utilizing your God given flow, your life, your your inner power, your. Your essence to become a real creator, a co creator and a manifestor. That's what this is all about. So I'll see you guys next time for another episode of Flow dreaming. And in the meantime, if you like this, drop me a note. Summerlowdreaming.com I always appreciate hearing your thoughts and or suggestions for show topics. You might also want to join I love Flow Dreaming. That's the group name and you can find that on Facebook. All right, until next time. Love to you all. My friends. Flow on is a brand new membership and its goal is to keep you in flow, in alignment, and in a state of beautiful growth and emergence. Emergence into the next you. Sometimes this is going to mean some healing or renewing your energy from depression or burnout. Or maybe you're going to be pushing into new areas of growth and rampant success. Well, Flow on is your monthly spiritual backpack. It's a brand new program. I haven't done anything like it since, well, it's been so many years when I used to have a Flow Dream of the Month club. Think of this as its new 21st century iteration and Flow on has everything that you need. It's a monthly masterclass, a monthly Flow Dream, even some live interaction. And best of all, you can come and go as you please. There's no longer commitments, so please check it out@flow dreaming.com if you're lucky enough and it's enrolling, do grab a spot. It will not be open and available at all times all year, but if it's open, please jump in. I know you won't be disappointed and I look forward to traveling with you on this beautiful journey of flow and giving you so many tools. All the tools that I've ever created. It.