708: Manifesting Away from "Survival Mode" (Throwback!)

Back in 2007, one of my episodes was called Manifesting Away from Survival Mode. It was episode 91 to be precise, more than 16 years ago. And so I thought it was time to tackle this idea again. We're gonna be looking at what I call the baseline that so many of us settle into without even realizing it. Right. That baseline survival mode. We can do it and we do it often, but that's something that's become normalized and maybe it's time to change it up, give it up. It's time to raise the baseline, move out of survival mode and see what's up there. So we're going to be reaching into what your life beyond survival mode looks like, what it entails you. You're going to pick up some surprising and useful ahas in this episode that will have you pivoting and scaling up away from survival mode faster than you even know. Flow Dreaming still kinda Woo Woo is just what it sounds like. An escape into the world of woo. Also a ride into you and how to feel happier, wiser and more self aware in every way. It's your ultimate journey into personal growth and inner power. We'll explore ideas like how your energy self influences the kinds of opportunities you encounter, or how your personal growth can drive your business growth, or even how that feeling of being stuck is really always coming from something else. We just have to figure out what. That's right. We're a dash of woo woo. A sprinkle of self care, a heap of problem solving and pattern busting, and a giant cup of encouragement. We're going to relight so much passion, purpose, self love and confidence in you that you practically stagger. I'm Summer McStravik, your host and welcome to Flow Dreaming. Still kinda woo Woo. Like I said back in 2007, I originally did this episode. Well, here we are at episode 708. Oh my gosh, about 600 episodes later and 16 years of wisdom under the bridge. And I want to tell you what I have seen countless times in my students, in my clients, and in myself. First of all, what is survival mode? Right. This is a concept that I introduced because I was seeing that a lot of us have a kind of baseline for our lives. A certain amount of wealth, a certain amount of comfort around us that we can always pretty much get to or get back to. But when we try to go higher from that, we tend to fall back down to this survival mode place. Sometimes we dip under and we have big losses and then we pick ourselves right back up to the good Enough to get by space. Think of it like a, like a, like an ocean with different layers and levels, right? There's the top level, you know, above the water, which is beyond survival mode. Then there's the water itself. The top of it you float on, that's survival mode. And then below the top of the water, that's the deep ocean. That's where we sink. And it's funny because a combination of things has to happen in our lives as we grow, as we are brought up as kids, as we have our first set of life experiences where we get used to a certain kind of level of being. Maybe you grew up with a certain amount of money in your house and so you as an adult are realizing it's funny. But I also have that certain amount of money. It feels comfortable. And maybe you didn't have much money and you work all the time and you work two jobs and maybe that's also what your parents did. So in a way it's weirdly comfortable, even though it's day to day, very uncomfortable. But you know you can do it. You saw them do it, you do it. Ah, maybe you actually came from a more successful household as you were younger and everyone was really good. And so you became really good with your finances, your career, et cetera. Maybe that was the focus. And therefore your survival mode is, well, everybody makes this amount, everybody has this house, this amount in savings. But you can still be in a kind of survival mode because maybe it's not about just material wealth. Maybe your survival mode is, yeah, I may be materially secure, but gosh, it was an emotionally bankrupt, you know, existence that I learned to feel comfortable in. So it's no wonder that I'm not married, I'm not with a partner. I was, or it was terrible, or I, you know, I have something and I believe in it. And then they break my trust and then it's gone and then we don't. And then. And there you are. Your survival mode is I can always count on myself. I can't count on anybody else. I can survive like that. I know, it's a big topic today, right? A big topic, survival mode. Oh my God. But you know what's really, really useful? When you get to see what layer or level it is that you kind of sink to when you're not looking or paying attention. What kind of level, when is it that you just float to the top of the ocean and just kind of float. You can always reach that point. It's familiar, it's comfortable, it's usually not where you want to be, you want to be flying, you want to be up there in the clouds, excelling, moving forward in all these different areas of your life. But survival mode says, hey, we can do this. We will always come back to this. We are safe in this, but not more than this. Interesting idea, isn't it? Like, I can think what my survival mode used to be, right? There was a certain layer of emotional connection that I could have, but not. Not more than that, not less, but not more. A certain amount of wealth that I could have, right? I came from a kind of boom and bust family, meaning there were years where we had lots and lots of money and could do anything and everything. And there were years when I had absolutely utterly nothing. The equivalent of your house burning down and all of your possessions in it. And starting with like zero. And that boom and bust became a bit of survival mode. Like, huh? I don't want to be boom and bust. So I'm always going to do enough to pay my bills. I'm always going to get enough. I will have rewards enough in my life to avoid the up and the down. That became how I internalized that, that pattern. What it means, though, is that, you know, the things that we internalize, these feelings, the energies that we perceive that we live in, become what we end up co creating around us. So in the world of flow dreaming, right, I'm always teaching what your energy is, is what the outside world reflects back. If your energy says, I can survive at this level, I can always get back to that level. I'm a survivor. Even that energy of saying, I am a survivor, believe me, guys, I know. I'm a survivor too. I've survived some horrific stuff. So life looks at me and says, oh, she believes that she's a survivor, therefore she will handle anything we throw at her. Which is fine in one sense, but in another sense, it means I'm constantly engaging with life with this kind of mindset, this energy set point that says, I can take anything you throw at me. It's almost like a challenge, isn't it? It's almost like saying, neener, neener, neener. I can take anything you throw at me. I'm a survivor. Life goes, okay, well, let's see. Let's find out. Let's let her. She's darn hell bent on proving this to herself because she tells herself this all the time. We better make sure she gets to keep proving it to herself. Here you go. Here are some hardships. Here's some stuff that will, you know, Reiterate to you what a great survivor you are. This, my friends, is how we end up in these weird patterning loops in our lives, having things, losing things, constant challenges in one or more areas of life. Have you ever noticed that, like, you have challenges in one area, a friend has challenges in a completely different area? It seems kind of arbitrary. It's like, well, how come I'm always good with work, but, you know, I'm terrible in my relationships? And yet you. You've been happily, you know, partnered up since you were, you know, 16, yet you can't hold a job. It's because of survival mode. It's because of the loop of what we keep telling our lives, starting from what we were used to, right? The kind of soup that we grew up in. But the beautiful thing about this gift of existence we've been given, this gift of life is that we have this long stretch of years that we can play with, where we can take moments and step back and observe ourselves. Say, just what am I making? Just what layer. Just what level is this that I seem to be comfortable operating at? And that's a key idea here. What level are you comfortable operating at? Remember, comfortable doesn't mean successful always. It can actually mean I'm comfortable with a certain amount of hardship around me I'm used to. Doesn't feel like hardship. It just feels like what is. Sometimes when I'm working with a client or a student, I'll say, you know what? You're carrying around a thousand pounds of bricks on your energy on your shoulders all the time. You've become so used to it, you don't even know you're carrying it. What do you think it might feel like if suddenly somebody lifted those bricks off your shoulders? You'd probably become untethered. It would be that weird feeling where you reach for the milk in the refrigerator and you realize suddenly as you grab it that it's empty and your arm flies up because you misjudged the weight. That weird feeling. That's what happens when we say, I realized where I'm comfortable. That is survival mode. That's the baseline. That's what I can do. That I bob back up like a cork, too. But I am ready for something more than that, right? They say thrive, don't survive. What does thriving look like? What does thriving look like? Great question. And some of us are answering that in our heads right now. Like, I have no freaking idea what thriving looks like. I mean, it's something I want, but I don't know. Am I really doing It I have something beautiful to tell you. You can thrive. But have you ever taught yourself how to thrive? Have you ever actually tried to figure out how to thrive? Have you ever given yourself some moments, some weeks, some months, some years to say, it's time for me to learn how to thrive? Now, many of us, like, we never have. You know, we spend our months and years figuring out how to pay the bills, how to get through school or this occupational program, how to get better in our jobs, how to be in a relationship with someone. We spend chunks of our lives figuring out all of those things. And oh, my God, those are so important. But the moment you say, I'm going to learn how to thrive, you've just upped the ante. What you're saying then is, I'm learning how to do something that will actually affect every single area of my life. I'm going to thrive in my relationship, I'm going to thrive at work. I'm going to thrive in my heart, in my mental health, I'm going to thrive in my physical health. What does that mean to me? That's where life starts to get really good and juicy. And I think I first started answering that question or asking that question, God, it's got at least be 2007, because that's when I first did this episode topic. In the last 16 years, I've come back again and again and again to it. And, God, the things that I have been through, right? I have been fired. I have had breast cancer. I have had more struggles than you can imagine. I've also built a beautiful life of my own. My own company, I run my own work, my own time. I am my own boss. I work with amazing people and students. I love the work that I do. I get to write books. I've raised two kids. I've been married for 26 years. I had to learn how to thrive in every one of these environments, how to say, no, I am not going into survival mode in this one. And you know the beautiful thing about survival mode? I know I'm painting it as like, oh, get out of there as soon as you can. But whenever you find yourself in survival mode, it's actually telling you something. It's saying, oh, here you go again. What do you want to do about this? Oh, here are those feelings again. Feelings of panic, feelings of, I don't know how to do anything else. Feelings of, I just don't even understand this. I don't know how to change this. Feelings of I don't have enough. Feelings of feeling fear Feelings of worry, feelings of, what am I going to do? Survival mode. Every one of them. Those feelings are actually rainbows. This is weird. Hear me out. Because what they're saying to you is, here is the point that you get to work upward from. Sometimes you go back and you relook at that point over and over, reminding yourself, oh, here's the point that I'm working up from now. The coolest thing is that eventually the point that you're working up from starts to grow higher and higher and higher. Your survival mode, that baseline is a little better than it was five years ago. A little better? More better than it was 10 years ago. A whole lot more better. Think about it, right? Survival mode, 15 years from ago for you may have been, I just paid the bills, barely. I had no money in my bank account. And check it out today I've got some savings today, I have a home today. I'm happily married today. And you realize probably not ever gonna go back to that lower level of survival. I've reached a new one that I'm comfortable at. And this new level, yeah, it has its things, but it's still a rainbow for me. It's still something beautiful for me. Because it's telling me, you go up from here, right? This is your new baseline. If you want, you can keep going up or you can stick around here for a while, wait until you get to a point of good enough contentment. Eventually, though, most of us end up saying, I wonder what else there is. I wonder how much more I can thrive. So I want you to take a moment right now and consider what is your survival mode? What are the things that you know you can pull off, you know you can accomplish, you can skate by, you can have, you know, your bills paid just barely enough. You can have what? What is that baseline of survival that you know you can do? Because that, my friends, is your life. Saying you are going to learn how to manifest up and beyond from your here. Let's find out what there is. You've got the roads to riches springing out from this feeling, this place. Jump on it. Are you going to jump on it? Let's figure it out. Let's figure out how we're going to thrive. I bring all of this up as you know, some of you know me, school is my program that teaches you how to do these things. It is that point in your journey of life where, where you say, I am gonna thrive beyond where I've been. I'm going to learn what it takes. And I understand that there are actual instructions. There are ways of living and thinking and working with energy. Right? In the world of flow dreaming. I call it action and pre action, right? Physical work and energetic emotional work. I teach you things like how to create a life blueprint, an energy blueprint, an emotional blueprint. I teach you how to interact with the world so it starts responding to you differently. I teach you all of these things, and that's me school. And one of the big things it does is it takes you from whatever level of survival mode you're in and brings you to that next layer. Up we go. If you're ready, reach out. Talk to me. It does start September 10th. So if you're thinking about it or curious about it, this is literally your last time to go through this program with me. Teaching you, guiding you. This is live, by the way. Friends, this isn't just an online course. This is my live me school program. Only happens once a year. It's in its 10th and final year. 10th and final version may change into something else in the future, but this beautiful boutique program, this is it. I invite you to finally just take advantage, you know, throw caution to the wind and be in this last class with me. Anyway, go to flowdreaming.com meschool flowdreaming.com there's a place where you can set up a time to talk with me, and I'll talk about your goals and your ambitions and desires. Hold that thought. I think it's time for us to go into one of my favorite segments of Flow Dreaming Shower thoughts. Shower thoughts are when I just randomly throw out an idea that I'm kind of hoping you're gonna be in the shower tonight or tomorrow morning and you're thinking to yourself, and this pops in your head and you're like, yeah, that is an interesting idea. Huh? I should think more about that. Well, I did an episode 703 several episodes ago, and it's called 3am how to Make Middle of the Night Wake Ups Feel Great. Now, if you did not catch that episode, here's an idea to extract from it. How has your sleep been? How have your dreams been? This has been on my mind this week because I had a series of nightmares this week pretty much every single night, three nights in a row. I woke up in the morning and I was just like hot and exhausted. And, you know, it's hard because I get hot, flashy, and then I think that adds to it and, you know, it's muggy out and just uncomfortable. The fourth night I lay in bed and I Said, you know what? You're not going to have any nightmares tonight. You don't deserve them. You don't need them. They're not good for you. They're not healthy for you. Whatever it is that's trying to get through, I've heard it, and I don't need to be seen or shown it again. Tonight, your sleep is going to be peaceful, lengthy and deep. So I set that out there. I set it out as an intention. I set that feeling into my energy. I flow dreamed that feeling. Flow dreaming, by the way, if you're brand new, it's a culmination of guided daydreaming, flow state, and deep, intense emotion. It's a technique you can learn. So I flow dream that I had a great night's sleep. I'd like you to think right now, how is my sleep? Do I ever actually engage with that part of myself? You know, many of us just fall asleep and we think about how to get to sleep and what pills we can take to get to sleep or how comfortable our bed is, but we don't really think about who we are as we sleep. What's going on up in there? What's going on up in your energy and your mind and your spirit, in your soul, what's going on? It's like half of your day. It's 50% of your day. That's you sleeping. So I think sometimes we need to kind of reach out to that other part of us and say, hey, I like what you're doing. I don't like what we're doing, and I have some words to say about it. So think about that. It works like a charm for me and maybe it will help you. All right, that's it for Shower Thoughts. We're returning to manifesting a way from survival mode. Now, I've been giving you a lot of ideas of what it means to do this and kind of like the big picture. But how do you actually do this? My friends, this is where we jump right back into the world of flow dreaming. When you're used to an emotional set point inside yourself, a baseline or survival mode line, life is then responding to that as the she knows she can do it, he knows he can do it. There. That's a very powerful energy to keep giving to the world. So what we want to do is raise that up so that I know I can do it. Become something a little more comfortable, a little bigger for you, a little maybe more safe, or give you more freedom or more money or whatever it may be, wherever you need it to rise and grow up. Now we begin practicing this in flow. First, this might mean you're taking a selection of the flow dreams that I've produced. Let's say more money monthly. Right? That's a very popular one, if you didn't guess. More money monthly. And what you do as you flow dream with this is you're actually feeling. I am used to another extra couple thousand a month. I'm getting very comfortable with this. I'm getting used to the idea. I'm getting a sense of pleasure knowing that this is something that's achievable day in, day out, month after month, year after year. And you'll notice some different feelings that come up inside you. Maybe like, well, it might work for a month or two, but then I'll just go back to what I, you know, had before. That's not called getting out of survival mode. That's called being a little fish leaping to the surface and then diving back down. When you are energetically programming and reprogramming yourself like this in your flow, in your mind, in your emotional self, you know, flow dreaming is a bit like meditation. It helps you grow those new neural networks. Those new pathways actually come into being. Energy pathways, emotional pathways, neural pathways. And eventually that extra 3,000 or whatever a month begins to feel like, huh? Yeah, that's not that hard. Yeah, I can kind of do that. Yeah, that feels like me. That feels rational. That feels doable. That is. And you know what? I'm doing it, and I see how to do it, and I feel how to do it. And that's when the world around you just, like, changes shape. There's a movie that just came to my mind, the Maze Runner. It's like a junior science fiction book movie. And these kids have to run through this maze, and the maze moves around them constantly. Just as they think they're getting someplace, the maze resets around them. I think our lives are often like that maze resetting around us in response to us, where we are, what we're doing. So your life is now going to say, look, they think that they're able to have another three grand a month. Why not? Let's see how it goes. Let's see what they do with this. They're comfortable with it. There's nothing, no energy rejecting it any longer. There's no energy saying, oh, it'll come and go any longer. In fact, all the energy is saying, this is normal and will stay. Huh? Yeah. Okay, okay, okay. That's what we do in flow dreaming. That's the Kind of energy, emotional work. So, by the way, to reference that flow dream again, it's called More money Monthly, but you can get flow dreams on any variety of topics or make them up yourself, right? I teach you how to flow dream for free, my friends, my darlings. If you haven't learned yet how. How to do it and you're like, tell me more, I am intrigued. Then I encourage you to go to episode 704, ignite your manifesting power through Flow Dreaming. It is a tutorial, and if you don't want to listen to it on this podcast, listen to it on YouTube. There's a whole playlist there. And I walk you through several of these flow dreams. This is how we flow dreamers actively reprogram our life. It is not Law of Attraction. I find it far easier. And it's a practice that we can actually do, like work on yoga, for instance. We do it every single day or as often as you want. So check it out. And frankly, when I am saying to myself, I'm gonna get beyond whatever level of survival mode I'm in, because here's the funny thing, survival mode, as you grow bigger and more confident and comfortable and you have more successes in your life, you still have a comfort zone. You still have a layer where you're like, yeah, this is about it. This is where I'm good at. This is what I can sustain. And for some people, they're sustaining a half million dollars a year, right? They're sustaining an incredibly beautiful family life. They're sustaining things that to the rest of us, look like, wow, you know, that's not survival. You're thriving. And they're like, you know what? I am thriving, but it's still the low end, the base end of my thriving. There's even more thriving I could do. And trust me, they have hopes and fears. Maybe this is you. You have hopes and desires, not fears. You have hopes and desires as well that are even a little beyond maybe what you're doing. And you are still pushing yourself into them, toward them, joyfully, right? Rowing that boat with a sense of joyful exertion. The idea is your survival mode will continue to go higher and higher, raising the bar of what you're able to feel and thrive in as you go through your life. So whatever point you're in right now, there is always an up, there is always more. And it doesn't matter where you're starting, doesn't matter where you've been stuck at for years or even decades, does not matter a bit. The moment you start the moment you recognize it. The moment you leap from there, you are suddenly moving again. Oh, and it's like the wind in your hair. It feels fantastic. So I encourage you. Jump in. The water's great. With that, my darlings, I'm gonna let you go. And thank you for joining me for this episode of Flow Dreaming. Still kind of woo woo. A quick reminder again, me school. I hope to see some of you come in. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity at this point. That sounds cheesy, but it's true because I will not be running the program the same way next year. Right now you're gonna get me for 12 weeks live with you going through so much material, it's bonkers. You can find out about it@flowdreaming.com or you know what, just get on my mailing list. Get on my email list by also going to my website. I'm an old fashioned emailing kind of gal, so I'll give you all the details there. Lots of love. Have a beautiful rest of your day in Flow. 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 to 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 time, long time. So I bring all of this knowledge, experience, both real world and 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 in 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.