BONUS: How to Use Flowdreaming to Completely Remodel Your Life

Jessica is one of my oldest friends. She's also been Flow Dreaming for at least 15 or more years and I was curious, what are the long term effects? What's Flow Dreaming done for her? And are our practices the same or different? So I want you to enjoy today's conversation where you'll discover how being in flow truly does reshape our lives. Not just my own, which you're always hearing me talk about, but other people's as well. So. So we'll talk about three ways to use Flow Dreaming daily for their most potent effects, as well as how to really dig deep in those big pivot points in your life where you're asking and needing direction, flow connection, and just knowing you're on the right path. Stay with me. Flow Dreaming still kind of 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 see stagger. I'm Summer McStravik, your host and welcome to Flow Dreaming. Still kinda woo Woo. Jessica, I just told everybody who you are and I know they're really interested in hearing from you. So say hi.

Hi Summer. It's so great to talk to you and everyone else today.

They all know that you've been part of my life for a long time and so I wanted to ask you the first question about your practice with Flow Dreaming, which is when I started Flow Dreaming, what did you think?

Well, I feel like Flow Dreaming existed in your life long before you kind of formalized it into what it is now. So I think you probably had even little techniques or ways of handling life when we were kids that weren't flow dreaming yet as such. So I think that was interesting that you probably already had an influence on me and as a friend helping me with problems when we were young by using some of these ideas and methodologies without knowing yet what they were. And then when we were older and I think you Were more involved with Hay House and you were recommending books. Abraham Hicks and this whole other world opened up to me. And so I think when. When you started flow Dreaming, it was another facet of your personality that was kind of interesting and fascinating to me and didn't surprise me actually knowing you.

Yeah. I'm remembering when we used to ride the bus to school. It was an hour long bus ride because we were both out in the country. And one of the first times we met, I think I was reading a book and I was wearing a green hat or something. You slid in next to me and you're like, oh, I like that book. It was a book about witches, I think. I don't remember the title. It was like sixth grade exactly.

I think instant connection there for some reason to do with witches and green hats.

Witches, green hats. And eventually flow dreaming. And two decades later, three decades. No, wait, three decades. No more than three decades. Oh my God. Known you a long time.

Be careful.

Okay, so here's the next thing then. Okay, so I've supported you, you've supported me through a bunch of rough stuff in our lives. I know you started using flow dreaming in earnest years back. Can you tell me why you started using it? What happened?

Yeah, I mean, you know, I, at a pretty young age, married pretty young and left my hometown and moved to a faraway land. And in that other country, I was really isolated and alone. I had two small children. I ended up getting divorced. And I had always longed to come back home. And my situation sometimes seemed very impossible because, you know, if you have children and you have a partner or an ex partner, you can't just take your children away from their father and you can't just leave them behind. So I think for me, and I felt a little bit trapped and I felt like a lot of my possibilities and options were stunted as long as I couldn't move. Now, looking back, that was classic lack thinking in flow dreaming terms. But at the time, it made me feel very hopeless and depressed. So it was really, I don't want to say life or death for me, but it was a very hard time. And so I think that desperation drove me to really be open to, hey, how can I feel okay? Even though I feel like I can't control the reality of this situation. And I did start flow dreaming more and more. And then I think through my divorce and through sort of changing my life around and changing how I felt about my life and my future, and even without necessarily moving physically back home at.

That point, I remember Some very rough and teary phone calls during that era.

Yes, for sure. It was a very, very hard time.

I also remember you really starting to shift in your thinking, your mindset. And I'm thinking about something I said to some of my students just yesterday, actually. I said, when you've got something that seems impossible, like you have to get your needs met, someone else is trying to get their needs met, which might be in conflict with your needs, and you don't see any possible route. There's like no reconciliation. How do we. Like, there's no path. I say that's the perfect time to go into flow. Because what you're then saying is, I've exhausted all of my own, you know, current resources. I need more resources. And I do believe that there is a way that everybody can be happy in this situation. Like, the universe just has to have that as an option on its card table. It just has to. So if that's an option, I want that option, and I'll wait for that option, and I will act on that option. I want everybody to walk away from this feeling like they won. Everyone. And I mean, I use that myself a lot when I feel like I'm in really stuck situations or I don't know the way out. And it's a different thing than when you're just praying to God and saying, you know, fix this for me. It's a different vibe. It's a different energy.

Well, yeah, I think with flow dreaming, what you do is you open a space that wasn't there before. You basically say, oh, wait a minute, I'm going to go into my flow, which is completely in my own best interest, in my own control, if you want to use that word. And within this space, in this moment, I actually have the choice to create whatever I want. I can create whatever emotion I want. I can create whatever belief I want. I can create my reality in this moment. And that is very powerful because we're often living in the past, in the future with emotions that aren't real or maybe aren't the emotions that we would choose to feel. And so I think in that kind of desperate situation, flow dreaming allows you, and I would say, the practice of it as you have taught it. So it is something that it takes a moment to understand how it all works. But basically you just get in touch with your emotional state and your beliefs, and then you go and make a space and say, hey, wait a minute, I'm going to clear this out, become neutral, and maybe make a choice for a second of how I would rather feel.

Exactly. I couldn't have said it better, my dear. It sounds like you've been a coach or something in flow dreaming before. I don't know. I'm just getting this funny feeling.

Yeah, well. Well, I loved when you started mi school and we had our first class of students. It was a really awesome, exciting time. And, you know, a lot of them are still with you. A lot of them we're all still connected to 10 years later. And it was. I did coach in that program and I learned from the students, and hopefully I helped them get stronger in their flow dreaming practice. But I think one of the things that came back again and again was a fear of emotions. Instead of the idea that emotions can be a tool or can be something that works to your own benefit and makes you feel better.

Yes. Like you were saying just earlier, so many of us, like, we feel like we're stuck with certain beliefs about our life and beliefs about ourself. Things that honestly just kind of got thrown into us as we were growing up. Things we picked up from society about how we should act or what we should do. And there comes this point in our lives where for many of us, we pause and say, wait a minute, is this real? Like, does this belief work for me? Why do I believe it? Because it's quote, quote, true. Hold on. Other people have things that are differently true. I want what's true for that person, not what I think is true for me. And we start to get into this, I don't know, this river of change in what we allow ourselves to now be. And, you know, like I always say, you know, your beliefs are what the world is responding to. Your actions are what the world responds to. Life and flow and the universe and higher power, whatever you call it, it's reading you. You're just this giant, constant running computer script walking around. And everything around us is reading the information that we're putting out and responding in kind. So for you to say, I decided I wanted to change the way I feel, I wanted to change the beliefs I had about myself and my life and my potential, that's like, bingo, you just changed the script. You just went someplace else with it.

Well, it's the first step, but it's not that simple long term, I would say. And that's where the practice comes in and the community comes in and lifelong learning and building trust. So there's like, it's complicated, but I think once you get that first lesson of, wait a minute, this is not happening to me, I can have Some influence here. All the things I believed could be wrong, and I can actually make something new. That is a game changer. And I think something you told me again, another big step that changed was I had gotten divorced. I was looking for a new partner eventually. I really wanted to work on myself and make sure that I was the person that would attract the best partner possible and a stable marriage and all of these things. I remember telling you, I remember this conversation. I said, well, if I lose weight, if I finish my college degree, if I have this much money in the bank, then I will probably attract the right partner. And you said, well, how about if I told you that exactly as you are right now, you could attract the right partner. You don't need to check off any boxes. You don't need to fulfill any requirements. You are great just like you are now. And you're enough like you are now to have what you want in your love life. And you know what, Summer, when you said that, within a very short time, I met the man I'm married to now. And we have been extremely happily married for, I don't know, 16 years now, almost together for 20. That's crazy.

Do you want to hear something really serendipitous? Like, this is flow in action, right this second Yesterday, I recounted this exact story when I was recording my course, be loved, find your soulmate. I talked about you. I shouldn't admit that, but. Because I was trying to keep you anonymous. But you just said it yourself, like, literally, I just recounted this story. Right? So this is. This, for me, is a classic example of flow and synchronicity and entrainment. When you're in flow with someone else, your lives tend to overlap. Things happen that are just. They seem, like, weird and freaky and otherworldly and just like signs and symbols and everything. So, yeah, this is. Not to take this in a different direction, but this is a classic example of the universe giving you a sign back, right? Saying, I hear you, I see you. Yeah, here's something really strange that will clue you in. Jerk you out of your normal thought processes, just so you know that what you're doing is actually working. It's right. Because I kind of want to go back to what you were just saying about, you know, meeting your soulmate. But I also want to go into another idea you said, which was, this is not an overnight process, which is something I tell people all the time. I say, when you. If you're trying to get your mind, your energy entrained into your flow, your river of ultimate perfection and goodness which exists. You do it once, it's great, do it twice, great. But it's like compound interest. The more you do the same thing, it builds, it's cumulative, you know, and like you're a walking example of someone who's done this for decades, as am I. Right? And other students. But the real, like the real big sprouting, gorgeous garden doesn't bloom until a month or two months or three months or three years. In the beginning, it's just seedlings coming up and then it just explodes, takes off.

Well, and it's not just that, it's how you feel along the way. Because I definitely went from someone who was emotionally all over the place for much of my life, kind of ups and downs, highs and lows, panic, all of these kind of things. Anxiety and, you know, life is going to throw things at you that you're not going to understand at the moment or might seem to be destabilizing you. And if you have this practice, you actually can enjoy all of the moments. So right now, I mean, I definitely have some, you know, I have instabilities that happen in my life, whether it's health or financial or with relationships. But because of my long term practice, I trust, I trust now. And I actually most of the time do not panic. And most of the time I feel like, oh, this is going to work out, this is going to be fine. I'm fine right now and I'm going to continue to be fine. And that is something that I did not have before. I started flow dreaming and now it's become kind of second nature and it's just such a rock in my life. It's very helpful to have this tool.

Yeah, I have to say I've noticed that about you very much, especially lately. Instead of nose diving into panic because I'm like, you didn't mention it, but you've been going through a situation that would have previously made you nosedive into panic. And I'm watching you and you're not, you know, you're like, no, it's gonna work out. It's always worked out. It's been working out. Why wouldn't it work out this time? And I'm like, yes, nodding my head and my heart fluttering in my chest. Yes, exactly. Because you and I are very similar in that we like to go in and control things because if we can control it, then we can make sure the outcome is what we want. And therefore we're not put in anything painful. Like that's, that's what rolls around in our head. But in reality, what life keeps showing us is you can try to control things, but sometimes you have to just allow things and trust things. And if you've built yourself, if you've built that interior world inside you to be what you want the outer world to reflect, it is going to fall back in line with that at one point or another. And your interior world right now is, you know, I have a beautiful marriage, a beautiful family, a beautiful home, a wonderful everything is working for me. So no matter what temporary outside things may seem to be taking you off course, it's like that is inside you so much now that the winds just shift in response constantly. Like, that's a bedrock precept of flow dreaming right there.

Yeah. And it gives you this emotional stability, psychological health. Mental health, which is really important for everyone these days and not necessarily a given if you don't work at it. So I think, you know, for me, that that's one benefit. The other benefit is it helps me to not doubt my decisions. I trust myself and I trust my choices. And then when things might not work out as expected, you don't feel. You don't carry that guilt and shame as long as you might have before. So I. And I think this might be relatable for a lot of people, maybe not. But I feel like, you know, we go through these patterns, right? We set ourselves up and we say, okay, if A happens, then I'm going to feel like this and I'm going to believe this about myself. And if B happens, then I'm going to feel that and I'm going to feel that about myself. And we kind of get into these. We go through that over cycles, right? And I think if we can just take a step out of that cycle and say, oh, I'm in my flow. And my flow feels like this all the time. And all the rest, I'm going to match it with that. Does this feel like my flow? Yes. Okay. That's a yes. Does this feel like my flow? Nope. Oh, okay. Something else then. Something better. This or better, Right, Summer?

Oh, my God. You're preaching to the choir lady. Just keep going. Yeah, this or better. And also that sense of, does this feel good? Does that feel good? Like, that's one of the fundamentals that I try and teach people. If you have a negative emotion, that's incredibly valuable. The personal growth community, it's kind of weird and splintered in some ways because half the people say, don't feel anything negative. And I'm like, why not feel something Negative. If there were no stop signs out in my city, it would be a hot mess out there. I'd never take my car out. But the negative emotion is that stop sign and it says, this is a no. But sometimes you see the green light and you're like, wait, that's my yes. That feels really unsure. Like I feel a yes. I feel like that's in my flow. That feels good. But there's nothing, there's nothing sure about that. There's no guarantee about that. I don't even know where that road is going. And that's where having this, I think, ongoing practice where you, you know, for me at least, flow dreaming increases my trust year after year. And it's funny, as much as my trust increase, I tend to get challenges from the universe. Like, okay, well we'll give you an even bigger one to trust through. I'm like, come on guys, enough. By now I'm done with that. But that's how it seems to work. And I just keep understanding that deeper level of trust and what the yeses actually mean and to follow them. So I'm glad you kind of brought up that, that your emotions are actual guideposts for you. And that's something I don't talk about enough maybe is the emotional, psychological aspect of it. Sometimes I call flow dreaming emotional reconditioning. Especially with all of my psychologists and psychiatrists and doctors and academics that I work with, because that's such a more acceptable term. It's not woo woo. I'm like, ah, call it what you will, it works.

Well, yeah, because I think that and, and I don't know, I don't have an explanation for that. But going through the world with this positive feeling inside, with a pure, I would call it like a pure enlightened feeling. Or I feel like if I'm flow dreaming and I'm taking a walk down the street, I feel sometimes that this energy is radiating out of me and I feel it physically in my body. If I'm consciously practicing, and I won't say it lasts for a long time, it might just be a couple seconds, but you feel like a spark of energy in your physical body that can't go unnoticed in the universe, that can't go unnoticed in everyone you meet and everything you encounter. So I think that getting into that, getting that energy spark, which I physically feel and I emotionally feel it is sort of, it's a way of connecting to the universe. But I think it affects not just my emotions and my psychology, it affects everything. It's all connected.

I 100% agree. Sometimes I feel as if my heart is an overflowing chalice of, I don't know, light energy. And I literally feel it in my chest. And that began happening to me around 2015, maybe. I did a lot of work to kind of unblock my heart and release fear. And. And now when I go into flow, not only am I communicating, but it's like I'm effervescing. I'm like that Alka Seltzer tablet drop dripping in the water, and it was all deep. Like, that's. That's the feeling. It's just pours from me. Okay, so this makes me think. Can you describe to people what your actual practice feels like? What does it look like? Because I know it's a little different for all of us, and I get that question all the time, like, how do I do it? Exactly? And I'm like, well, we all do things a little differently from another. Right?

Right. And I think that my practice, maybe I can describe three different things that happen. So let's say here's one that's more like a quick fix. Right? I'll be getting obsessive thoughts, or I will be feeling really negative or thinking negative things to a point where it's distracting me from things I need to do. That still happens. Right. It's not because I practice it. That doesn't ever pop up. It does. And so what I've learned to do now is I will interrupt and I will say, oh, what if I'm wrong about that? What if I'm wrong about what that other person thinks or feels? What if I'm wrong about how I've judged this situation? And often just asking that question or saying, what else could that mean? Being curious? Right. We've heard about this. That can just create an energy shift within seconds. And if I do that over and over again, I start healing around that situation. So that is just like one practice. It's like a set of words, a mantra. Right. Like, I also, sometimes, if I start to feel anxiety, will say, I am safe. All is well. But instead of just saying the words, because I have this practice of emotionally and physically kind of allowing myself to feel a connection to a bigger flowing energy. When I say those words, I can actually create a physical feeling in my body that is either tingly or light. Right. So then that is something that's happened through years of practice, those two kind of strategies. Now, how do you get there? It's harder, Right. If I get up in the morning and I go for A walk I put in my ear. AirPods. Sorry. And I listen to a flow dream from you, Summer. And I will not just listen to that flow dream. Sometimes people will start thinking about their day. You'll start thinking of something else. I won't really be listening to the flow dream. That's not effective. Right. I actually have to listen and feel the words you're saying. I have to be focused on what's happening. I have to be present. So presence, practicing presence is very important to having a good flow dreaming practice. And once you do that over and over again, it's easier to slip into that state of presence and awareness.

Yeah, I kind of mirror you in some parts. Like there's the emergency flow dreaming, which is I'm feeling myself slip. And you just mentioned two of the beautiful techniques that I teach in MI school. Right. Being curious, being wrong. But that is a way, you know, I try to tell people, always catch yourself when you're starting to slide. Catch yourself as quickly. Like teach yourself to catch yourself. And it'll maybe take a while in the beginning and you'll feel like these repeating thoughts, these lack thoughts going around your head for maybe days or weeks. And then one day you go, wait, why do I have this? Is this. Is this changing anything? No. Is this even true? Maybe not, right? And the more you can sort of shorten that timeline, the less time you spend. Like again, to go back to negative emotion. And the stop signs. A stop sign says stop, look for traffic, then go. But a lot of times our negative thoughts stay in swirl. They just swirl and swirl. And it's like a siren. It's like a fire alarm in your house that just goes on and on. And no one's checking for a fire. No one's doing anything about it. The alarm is going to keep going until you pay attention. So I say when you get the minute you get a negative feeling, that's life saying, hey, nudge, nudge, get back in your flow. Nudge, nudge. That's not the way to go. Nudge, nudge. There's a better way, a different path. And so I train myself to listen quicker as opposed to just letting it bear down on me and grind down. And sometimes it's been even so shocking to me when I will realize that I've had a lack thought that's been lodged inside me negative feeling for eight months. And suddenly one day I see it and I go, damn, Summer, you should be so much further along by now. It took you eight months. But sometimes these are really deeply embedded things. About our life. Like, I'm allowed to have this. I will never have that. This is possible for me. That's absolutely not possible. Like, deeper stuff like that can sometimes take a little bit longer to see and recognize. But if you do this work, you will get there.

Yeah. And it heals. It heals also, right? Because if you keep repeating this, you will heal the old wounds and they won't hurt anymore. I mean, that's really the upside, right? Is that you get to feel good more often. And who doesn't want that?

Jess, do you see why sometimes it's so hard for me to describe to people the extent of this practice? I'm like, oh, it's for healing. Oh, it's for manifesting. Oh, it's for changing your emotional nature. Oh, it's for. And people are like, wait, what? How did you do all of waiting? Wait, what? And I go, I can't describe it. Just start doing it, for God's sakes. All right, so what, what last thing do you want to leave everybody with? Like what, what, what idea or something you want to share that I haven't asked you about?

Well, I think that it can be daunting and it can seem confusing to take on this flow dreaming journey. I guess what I want to say is that it's actually pretty simple. It's about creating new habits. It's about saying, like, oh, today I really did not do anything that I wanted to do or do it right? And then going to the next day and say, well, I get a new day, I get a new moment. Every moment is ours. Every moment is what we own. To be present in our life and to feel how we would prefer to feel. And so every moment, we can start over again.

Every moment, we can start over again. I think I may have just found the title to today's episode. What do you think?

I think that's a powerful one.

I'll think about it. All right, Jessica, thank you so much, my dear, for coming here and sharing your heart and some of your experience and, you know, just showing up.

Well, it's my pleasure. Thank you, Summer, for all that you do.

All right. Lots of love. I'll see you this weekend or next weekend.

Sounds good.

And there you have it. A peek inside another long term feature, Flow Dreamers Intimate practice. How a relatively normal person, my friend, has integrated it into her life. And, you know, she kind of hinted on some of the big changes that she used it with, such as, you know, getting a divorce and moving across continents, returning to school, getting married again. Starting another family. I mean she's done so much and I hope that you could see that your life can similarly be impacted that when you begin to shift the lens with which you see things, when you begin to get into flow, to remind yourself constantly there's an easier path, there is a way for things to work out. I don't even know if I see it yet, but it's there. I feel it. I'm going to feel it now. That's the game changer and that's the practice that we're all committed to. So I welcome you, welcome you into this world. If you're brand new to it, if you're an old timer, please, hey, reach out to me. If you have a story and you maybe would like to share, I would love to talk with you and maybe bring you on in a future episode because I'm always curious to see about the really diaspora of flow dreamers out there. So with lots of love I will see you all next time. We'll have another beautiful episode together of flow dreaming. Still kinda Woo woo. 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.