658: Empaths in Hiding

Psst. Hey, empath. Yeah, you. You talking to you. I see you. I know you're hiding. I know you're fading around that corner, hoping I didn't catch you out of the corner of my eye. I know that you can see inside me. I know that you can tell what I'm thinking or what I'm feeling. I know you've got a heads up on what might happen next. I know all this because I'm an empath, too. 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. Oh, you. You fabulous empaths out there. I am going to drag you out from under the covers and hiding behind the door and generally trying to fake your way through life that you don't know exactly what's going on and who it's going on with. So welcome to episode 658 of Flow Dreaming. We're calling it Empaths in Hiding. Okay, here we go. I know you know who you are. I know it. But today I wanted us to talk about why you're not sharing this gift with the world. Why maybe you're not fully embracing this gift in yourself, and how perhaps you can shift it from being maybe a burden or something you're uncomfortable or scared with into something instead that lights you up, makes you proud, makes you special and incredibly useful to your friends, and just makes you realize a little bit more of who you truly are inside. So a little backstory before we jump in. Many of you have been listening to this podcast since it first aired on Hay House radio back in 2005. Oh, my God. And I've shared my stories along the way. One of those has to do with the empathic work that I do. And, you know, I'm probably most known for manifesting and Flow Dreaming. But like I'm always saying to my students, manifesting is only half of the equation. Information flows from us into the universe when we're manifesting, and it flows from the universe back into us when we're being empathically aware. My journey was pretty much being aware from day one that I. I had this open channel. I don't even want to phrase it as I was special or I was this, I was that. In my world. We are all empaths. It's just a matter of how much have we either evolved this and developed this in ourselves versus how much have we quashed it and buried it down. So my family history is quite crazy and kooky. And my mom has long, long been interested in the intuitive arts as well as natural healing, alternative health, et cetera. My grandmother was as well, my great grandmother. Oh, on down the line, I remember as young as, you know, six, seven, my mom would be practicing with me. I'm thinking about something. Can you feel what I'm thinking? Do you see colors? Can you figure out the number? We would play these really childlike games, but the idea was she and I would figure out how much could we really pull from each other. And we would practice this right from the get go. By the time I was maybe 12, I had begun reading the tarot, or the tarot, which is the way we pronounce it. By the time I was 17, I was giving professional readings and I did that for years. I did it as sort of a hobby, something I enjoyed doing. I realized that when I was reading information, especially from the tarot, what I was really doing was looking for patterns. I was getting symbols and understanding the arrangement of them and even got to the point where if I would throw a spread down of these tarot cards. And back then we didn't really have Oracle cards so much, but I'd throw a spread down and I'd look at it and I'd realize, this story doesn't fit. I'm like, this is a bad, you know, a bad reading. We're going to put all these cards back and redo it. And I started to learn that the readings that were really clear were cohesive. The information made sense from one card to the next. It's like reading a novel in order versus reading random chapters. So I continued to do this for years and eventually went into a different direction. I went into publishing and, you know, got my college degree and decided that I was going to leave all of that behind because I really wanted to focus on the power of words. And for me, again, words and stories and patterns, they all flow together. So I did that, did that for years. And of course, life being what it is, told me that you have these abilities. Summer, you've been training since you were, you know, six. Why aren't you doing anything with them? My life brought me full circle when I started working for Hay house in around 2000, I know, long time ago now, my goodness. And I was put right back in that world. And it's not like I had ever stopped using my intuitive abilities. I was just using them privately for me. Should I do this thing? What will happen? What is this person thinking? And over time, I realized one of my greatest skills was answering that question. What is someone thinking? How are they feeling? And of course, along the way, I've done just hundreds of hours of research. I can't even imagine how many books I've read. What I've looked into, from the most old school ridiculous writings from, you know, 50, 100 years ago to the newest way out there stuff. What it boiled down to was this. There's a lot of different ways of being intuitive. You can be excellent at reading the future, knowing what's happening next. You can be fabulous with medical intuition, knowing what's going on in someone's body. You can be reading animals and understanding how they're feeling and what they need. In my case, the most fascinating thing for me was what is somebody feeling and where is their life going and why? So this dovetails really well into flow, dreaming and manifesting. Because when we're doing this, we're looking at where is your life going and why? What do you want? How can we make it wait a second. I need to know what's happening in you. I need to put myself not just figuratively, but almost literally in your moccasins and feel what you're feeling. And over time, this became known as empathic intuition, empathic awareness. And over the years, this rise in awareness about, well, maybe in particular narcissists, people who tend to suck your energy, people who tend to take from people like us the awareness of over givers and boundaries. Like all of this lingo has become really popular and it speaks to people like us. We are the chameleons of the psychic or the intuitive world. We are able to in essence, feel what other people feel to a degree, become those other people. And we know we do this. We probably started doing this in many cases to protect ourselves, right? If you know how that scary parent is feeling or how much they'll drink that night, you have a good sense of what you need to do. As a result, a lot of empaths have hyper developed this awareness. But those of us who are in hiding, those of you who are still reluctant to embrace it, you've got maybe some baggage around it. That's what I want to break open today. That's what I want to look at. The baggage you have around this ability in yourself that takes something that is so beautiful, so real. Such a fine attunement of yourself to the world that takes this and makes you cast it aside because you're wary or scared. If you have opened this gift in yourself, you deserve to enjoy it and not hide it or be fearful of it or protect it. So let's talk about this. One of the first things that we tend to tell ourselves when we're not fully embracing our gifts is I'm not really good at it. I mean, it doesn't happen consistently. Other people are so much better. I am nowhere near as good as them. All right? Everybody started out like that. Everybody had that feeling that someone was above them. Some people started young when they were 6, and some people are starting now. It doesn't matter. We're all in our own scale. We're all in our own time frame. We're all, frankly, at our own speed. I mean, maybe I started at 6 and went super, super, super slow. And I'm exactly at the same spot that you're at and you started three years ago. So I'd like you to challenge that feeling in you that you're not going to be good enough. And what if you're wrong? And et cetera. Just let it go. The first time you learn to ski, you are on your butt in the snow pretty much the whole time. That's okay. The first time you become aware of your empathic skills, your empathic gifts, and you just say, I'm gonna own this. Well, it can feel like having your butt in the snow and you're gonna say to your friends, hey, do you mind if I look into someone? Do you mind if I tell you what I think's going on? I feel something. Do you mind if I share? And that brings me to the next reason why a lot of empaths are in hiding. Because they have shared at a certain point, they have contributed their observations. And what they realized is their friends really didn't wan know. Like, they didn't. They did not want to hear it. I know, I know. And this is because if you haven't really had training around this, you, you don't know the rules of the road. And one of the rules of the road is you offer it when someone invites you. If someone says, I wish I knew what he was thinking, and you say, well, I know. Do you want me to share? You don't just tell your girlfriend, hey, you shouldn't be dating this guy. He's a, he's a major league, you know, behind. And you know, I could tell him, like, she's going to Be like, I don't want to hear that from you. I'm in love. And now I'm mad at you. You're no longer my friend. So we've had these experiences where frankly the information has bombed. Okay. And this happens to everybody. Empath. Every empath, you look at it and say, ah, what did that tell me? One, I'm not gonna offer advice where it's not sought, or two, when I give it, I'm going to suggest that, yeah, some of my own biases might be in the way. I happen not to like your boyfriend either. So of course what I see is going to be tainted with a kind of look, this looks. You're having this awareness. You're developing this awareness, the more you do it. But it doesn't mean you need to shut it down and hide it or fear yourself being wrong. The more you do it, the more right you become, the more accurate you become. And eventually not sharing this information will feel difficult. I can't tell you how many times I'm chatting with friends or people. They think it's just my opinion. No, I'm sliding in some pretty valuable information, some pretty clear insights. I don't tell them, oh, guess what I picked up when I was psychically looking at you, right? I don't say that. But I let them know what I see and feel and they say, oh, and I hope, I hope I can maybe make a change for them. Sometimes it's as simple as, why are you so down on yourself? I'm saying it to a friend and I say, do you know what I see in you? This brilliant being with all this skill who's just afraid to put it out there. And my friend looks up at me teary eyed and says, yeah, you're just my friend. And you think that. And I'm like, no, no, no, I know that. I see that. You see, I'm telling them what I really genuinely feel inside them about who they are. I don't have to say I got it intuitively, but I'm still using it. But this brings me right back to this idea of you hiding. Sometimes you're hiding because you feel like, yeah, not only did I bomb with my advice, but my family, my church, my friends, they will think that I have just gone to the devil. And I nope. Have you ever looked at your pastor, your rabbi, your priest, and said, wow, their talk today was inspired by God. That was just so right on. Like they just hit home. Do you really think that even the spiritual leaders you look toward aren't reaching into their heart, reaching up to God, reaching out to their, you know, highest sources and saying, inspire me. Fill me, right? Fill me with the voice of God so I can convey it to my flock. What is that called? It's called being intuitive. The best counselors, the best therapists and psychiatrists, psychologists, doctors, healers, they feel what their patient needs. They read it. They read it like they're reading their blood pressure on a chart. They just know. And I've had experiences like this. You have too. I've had doctors look at me when I've been on death's door with sepsis, with gangrene. Oh, I've been through the wringer. And they've looked at me and said, you're gonna be fine. And I look at them back like, what are you talking about? I think I'm dying. No, you're gonna be fine. And they know. They know. They're reading it. They're reading me. You are doing this too, and I'm sharing this because I really want this to be normalized. I want you to know that this empathic stuff, if your doctor's doing it, you know, if your pastor is doing it, why aren't you doing it? What are you afraid of? Well, somebody told me it was evil, bad, and wrong. My question is, well, what kind of stuff are you empathically, you know, aligning yourself to? Yeah, if you're aligning yourself to ugly, horrible, cruel, painful, evil, yucky deeds and acts and. And thoughts, then, okay, that's where you're sending your awareness and your energy. But I can tell you 99% of us aren't doing that. That's the last thing we want. We're opening our energy. We're opening our intuition to how can I help? What does this person need? God, if I could only help them. I wonder what I need. Where am I going? How do I feel like these are the questions we're asking. And these questions are all about love. They're about connection. They're about God. If I only knew a little more. If I could only read this, if I could only be clear and accurate, if I could only see through this situation with utter and total transparency and clarity, boy, then I know it would all get fixed. That is what we're using this for. And that can never be bad information, Clarity, transparency, can never be bad. So your job then, is to take all the weird, psychy, evil, y. Whatever stuff that you may have plopped onto this thought about yourself and just tie it up in a big old trash bag and walk it outside in your mind right now, it is not only old, but it is irrelevant, and it is flat wrong. And if you are still concerned about that, think about all the people you know and admire who are practicing intuitives, who are out there in the world showcasing. And you admire them. You're like, they're good. They are helping people. They are creating closure. Those mediums out there are helping people talk to their loved ones. On the other side, those, you know, intuitives are out there, you know, finding misinterpretations, children. They're. They're in there clearing up and helping people clean up their emotional, you know, breakdowns. I mean, God, I. Yeah, I admire that. Put yourself in that group, because that's the group you're in. You're not in any other group. So here's one other idea for those of us, those of you who are still in hiding. I obviously am not in hiding. Pretty much never have been. But I know why you hide. Because I see people hide as an empath going into another empath and feeling what they're feeling and feeling them hiding. I tell you, it's kind of like this weird feedback loop, right? That happens. But sometimes they say, hey, I'm not gonna do this, because I just. I don't even have the emotion for it. I don't have the energy for it. I'm just. I'm flat. I used to be able to. I used to know things in advance. I used to know when, you know, who was going to be on the other end of the phone or seconds before someone texted me. And I used to have this. This feeling of like, I know where this is going and if I should, I should have just said something. I used to get that all the time, and now I just don't so much anymore. I'd like you to think that it's not that your empathic awareness has gone away. It's that when something is ignored for, you know, over and over and over again, it really just stops catching your attention at all. It's still there, but you overlook it. It's sort of like your peripheral vision, you know? Like right now, if you stare straight ahead, you see the stuff in front of you, but you can also see stuff way off to the side, like wave your hand right by your shoulder, you can kind of see that. But if you're so used to looking straight ahead, you never. You're not really looking at your peripheral vision, therefore, it seems like it's not even there until you once again, focus on it. Your empathic self is always there. The only reason or time it shuts down is if it's aware that you're no longer using it, no longer wanting it. But it's there. And often all it takes is a nudge. Hey, wake up. Wake up, sleepy bear. Come on. How are we feeling? How is someone else feeling? And maybe you have an issue with that. Maybe you say, oh, Summer, it's not right to feel how other people are feeling to invade their beings like that. I see it differently. I see it as the same way I can choose to not say words with my mouth. A being can choose not to express or reveal their innermost self. Every being has complete control. You're never going in and, you know, whacking at things with a big cleaver. When you're speaking with someone empathically, they're going to show you what it's okay for you to see. Sometimes empaths, I know you've had this experience, you go and you're like, what is this person feeling? And you realize, they're lying to me. They're lying. They're lying. Yeah, because they are. Maybe they're lying out of their lips and maybe they're just lying in their deep self to you, maybe. Which happens even more often. They're lying to themselves. So that fear that you're going to go in and grab or pull or do something of violence against someone, I've never had that experience. However, I always teach my students, you want to ask permission and if you get a no, it's a no. It's just like if you call someone on the phone and they say, can't talk right now. Do you just barrel on and be rude? And what do they do? They hang up on you. And the next time you call, they're like, ah. And the next time you call, they don't even pick up. This will happen. The same rules of the road of politeness, you know, doesn't matter if it's a physical or non physical conversation, it's there. And believe me, if a person doesn't want to talk, they will not talk. And you will find yourself scrambling around and that's fine too, because they're allowed. There are some people who would like to empathically talk to me that I don't want to talk to, so they don't get to hear from me. The same is true with you, with all of us. So empath, hey, why are you hiding? And maybe this brings us to the biggest, deepest thing of all. I'm afraid to own it. I'm Afraid of the changes that it could make in me. I'm afraid of seeing myself differently. I'm afraid of my family seeing me differently. I'm afraid of what the world will think or how things might change for the worse. I'm afraid. I think this is the biggest reason of all that we empaths hide, ignore, push down, look away from our own knowing, our own intuitive self. Because when we really own that we know stuff. It means that we don't have an excuse anymore. We don't have an out. It means we can't say, I wasn't sure, I didn't know. Instead, we do know, and we could be sure. And that's scary sometimes. It's scary because it means we have to trust ourselves. And we're often pretty darn afraid to do that. I know something, and I'm going to trust that knowing, which means I'm trusting myself, which means I'm trusting life. And you see how it kind of gets bigger. But let me tell you this. This is the walk to walk. This is the path to go on. And if you're still shaking your head, saying, oh, Summer, you are overestimating me. I don't have an intuitive bone in my body, then I'm going to say to you, yes, you do. Yes, you do. Just about everybody on this planet was born with all of their senses. A few people don't have all of their senses, but I just. I've yet to meet someone ever who didn't have this basic sense. It's not really dependent on an organ like your eyesight is, or your hearing, your sense of touch. This sense, this ability to know transcends the physical. And it's always there. It is the connective tissue, the connective energy between you and source, between you and spirit, between you and God and between you and others. And that is always, always, always there. It's only a question of do you trust it or are you willing to get on the road to trusting it? Are you curious at all? Like, just stop for a second. What if you could go through your life right now feeling like I kind of know how the situation will play out? I'm pretty sure I know what this person is feeling like. I'm pretty sure I know what I'm feeling like. I think I can understand their relationship. I feel it. I know it. Do you see? It's almost like winning the lottery over and over again for you to have this, like, talk about hedging your bets, man, they wouldn't let you in a casino if you had this fully operational, you know, smell for what's going to happen, working. But you know what you can. It's not too late to start. Start anytime. It starts by kind of blinking your eyes open and saying, I guess I've had this all along. And I put it down, I stuffed it away. Maybe at one time it felt dangerous or hurtful. Maybe my emotions were too big for me at one time in my life. Maybe I went through something so big and horrible and heartbreaking that I said, I don't want to feel anything at all anymore. Just stop. I'm done. But you see, empathic intuition, by the way, definition, it's based on your emotions. Empath, emotional. This isn't the kind of intuition where, you know, the words are just bing, popping in your head. It's a kind of intuition where you feel what other people are feeling. You feel the mix of all the elements in relationships or situations. It's a wide and big area. It's beautiful because it's sort of like seeing behind the curtain in life. It's like seeing how the thing was made. The internal structure of the building. It's there, right? A building definitely has concrete. It's got some rebar, you know, got some wood, some nails and screws. It's there. Empaths are aware that it's there. And they're like, that completes the building for me. I mean, now I really understand this. It's beautiful. You're beautiful. If you want to start developing your empathic intuition, if I have just inspired you, just lit a fire under your butt right now, you can start, like, now, like today. It's really, really easy. It's ownership of it, acceptance of it, love of it, recasting it in your mind as something that is divine, wholesome, godly and beautiful. And then you can take the next step. Enroll in a course for it. Find a beautiful, wonderful teacher. Be very selective. Be very, very choosy. Who teaches you this? Because a lot of teachers, well, all teachers, we all influence our teachings with our own personal views of the world. And if you get a teacher whose personal view of the world has a lot of scarcity or lack or hurt, you'll be taught to be empathic and to explore your intuition from the perspective of, oh, be careful of this, be cautious of that, or that'll hurt you, or, oh, don't do that. You want to find a teacher who says, you will align to that which you are. Be big and beautiful inside, and all that you see and feel will be likewise big and beautiful. So jump in like, that's it. That's the only rule that I have for learning about your empathic intuition. Be sure that your teacher is wonderful. The teacher could be a book, could be a course, could be a person that you know, could be a group class on zoom or right down the street, play. Make it a game. Like, play. When I teach empathic intuition, I have a series of techniques that I walk people through. Starting with, like, the most baby steps. Like, just get your toes in the water. Ooh. I want you to have a nice good feeling from the get go. I want you to feel like, oh, that was delicious. Give me another one of those. I want a hot fudge sundae of intuition. And then we progress and I let you explore and play until you say, oh, my God, Summer, I figured out I am so good at this, but not so much that I'm like, great. Do you want to get better at that or do you want to stay with this? Like, what's thrilling your heart? Go, let's do that. If you're naturally good at something, do more of that. Don't spend your time on the stuff you're not naturally good at. Find what you find. The area of your empathic intuition that's like, ooh, yeah, I could do this in my sleep. Do more of it. You'll be a superstar is what that means. Train yourself. Training yourself could mean something as simple as the next time you have that deep feeling, you say, I'm going to trust you and I'm going to modify my actions or my response as a result. Training could be as intense as I'm joining a, you know, a 10 week program where I'm really going to explore this, try all different varieties and flavors, see what I'm good at, and begin really doing can be anything in between. The main thing I want for you, though, is for you not to be rejecting, denying, or discarding one of the most beautiful parts of yourself. A part of yourself that is there. It is there. And it would love for you to turn your heart toward it and say, I love you too. I love you back. You're mine. You're part of me. We are together. That's what it wants. And when you do this, you will feel it's like completing the circuit. It's like the completing the circuit. Something just feels whole and connected inside you. It's. It's a beautiful, beautiful feeling. And it's yours. And no one can take it from you. No one can tell you you can't have it. It's yours. You can take it as soon as you want it. So I hope there's no more reasons going through your mind about why you can't do this, especially that one. I'm afraid that one is only. I'm afraid I'll look dumb. I'll afraid the world won't understand me. I'm afraid people won't like me. I'm afraid my family will reject me. You can have all kinds of them, but it really just comes down to one thing. I am afraid. Blank, blank, blank. But you see, you can stop that whole sentence at I'm afraid. And that's what I want you to heal. There's nothing to be afraid of. Heal that. There's nothing to be afraid of. It's, you know, it's like looking at the beautiful thunderclouds in the sky and saying, I'm afraid of the rain. No, the rain is nourishing and nurturing. It can be destructive and hard. Sure, if it's a hurricane, but that's not you. Your rain is gentle. Your empathic awareness is built into you. It's a part of you. It's like your beautiful hair, your soft skin. It's part of you. It's there and it wants to be embraced and loved. And it's completely up to you how much and how you want to share it with others. But inside yourself, you're all open and transparent with yourself. That. That, my friends, is the key. So before we go, you'll notice I'm not doing a flow dream this time. I haven't been doing them every show for a while now because really I've done hundreds of them in the course of this podcast and I have hundreds more at my website, flowdreaming.com but if you're listening right now, there's two things I want to share with you that are, I think, gonna be really helpful for those of you who are empaths. One, I alluded already to the fact that I do teach courses in empathic intuition. You can look at my website right now. You'll look under courses and classes. You can also get something as simple as the playlist. I have a great playlist that you can get. It's downloadable, it's a series of audios. It's called the Intuitive Guidance and Awakening playlist. And basically I take you through flow dreaming, a kind of very emotional image, heavy, beautiful feeling based meditation where I teach you. This is where your intuitive knowing is. Go meet it and go receive some information from it. Go reach out to your higher power. Whether that's source God, universe, your higher self. It's just a beautiful introduction and if you've been doing it for a while, it's a beautiful deepening using, you know, another perspective, another way in. So I highly, highly encourage you guys to check out some of the resources reach out to me about MI school or any of the other programs. And with that, my love to you all, I can't wait to see you again for another episode. We'll be continuing with of course number 659 manifesting advice for people in their 40s. And I hope you guys listen to all of these. You don't have to be the age that I'm saying to get richness from this. You will look back at any age you've already passed through or are heading toward and you'll say, ah, that makes sense now. So I hope you go enjoy those and all my love until next time. Hi friends. If you enjoyed this episode, then I'd like you to consider what having private mentoring with me would be like. You see, I accept a small number of people each year for private coaching. The question is, what do you want to make? Who do you want to become? We can program and shape any area of yourself or your life. Imagine right now what you would be doing if you had no fear. Imagine how your life would look if there were no patterns and blocks repeatedly tripping you up. Imagine if you were fully healed in your heart, body and mind. Imagine if you also had a map to your success and you could follow it with ease and flow. Well, I look into you and into your life and I feel where you're going and know where the road is open and where it's blocked. I help you make the very best decisions based on what's coming up for you. I'll also show you exactly what I do day to day to succeed in my personal and business life. And we can create a copycat plan for you. So if you're game, you can fill out an application on my website for private coaching. Just go to flowdreaming.com coaching and then let's talk. I mean the time to go for it is now. So let's just get this started. Just reach out to me at my website, flowdreaming.com and I'll get right back with you.