A cardinal rule of Flowdreaming is that you are a magnificently powerful being….but your power extends only to YOU and YOUR OWN LIFE. Anyone else…well they’re also incredibly powerful…in their own life.

As long as you stick with manifesting for yourself, you’re going to prosper. Once you start trying to change someone else, you’re going to hit walls. Why?

As beings made of energy and information, we’re constantly creating our futures through every thought and feeling, action, and re-sponse or pre-sponse that ripples through us. Everything we do or feel today moves forward and out in our energy like the ripples around a rock tossed in a pond—little fingers that shape our tomorrow. Each one of us is made of moving energy, “swimming” forward, showering the future with our current trajectory, and that’s precisely why we can so powerfully influence the course of our lives at an energetic level.

Now, if you try to change, control, or influence someone else’s life, you’re going to run into all their feelings, actions, responses, beliefs, etc. that are pushing them forward. And oh my, that’s a lot of energy! And no matter what you do, try, say, or cajole, you cannot force that person to do something or see something they don’t want to see, or do, or tackle.

Every person is a king in their own land. You know this already, because I bet you’ve tried at one time or another to make someone do something or behave a certain way, and what you discovered was that even if they tried, it still wasn’t exactly how YOU would have done it, or whatever occurred didn’t last, or it didn’t turn out like you’d expected. Or, perhaps they didn’t even try–and you suffered and were upset that they wouldn’t “listen.” You might have even said to them, “You just don’t care about me.”

Caring or love has nothing to do with it, unfortunately. Even our own children, with whom we are guides and teachers, will ultimately behave how they want, no matter how much we try to force them or push them into certain actions or decisions. We can influence them, but we can’t change them any more than you can decide the color of a rose that blooms. You can feed the rose, water it, and give it sun, but it will bloom into whatever beauty is within it, within the positive or negative environment you give it.

Knowing this, and also knowing that my tendency is to want to change people, I have to periodically check in with myself and ask if I’m unhappy because I’m trying to change someone else. And surprisingly, I often am trying. The desire has crept in insidiously. Whenever I’m feeling upset or disappointed, or when I feel I’ve been “waiting for something to happen” or change that depends on another person’s actions, there’s a good chance that I’ve started trying to get someone to change. And this someone can be as intimate as my husband, or as removed as a colleague that I’m hoping will help me. My frustration is the indicator that all my wonderful manifesting energy has been pouring into a broken vessel of someone else—and I need to take it back and start thinking about me again.

Here’s an example:

Last week, I was feeling depressed by a friendship. Every time I suggest a way for my friend to change her life for the better, she shuts it down and tells me “I don’t understand” and “it’s impossible.” Or worse, she agrees with me, then does absolutely nothing about it. For me, it means I hardly ever get to see my friend or spend time with her. This frustrates me. But, I don’t give up: She’s my friend and we’ll figure something out, right?

Wrong. She’s my friend, but she’s the keeper of her own castle. If she’s blind, she’ll only open her eyes when she’s ready. And that is that. So my choice is either to pull my power back, or continue to leak it out in my ineffectual desire to change her, or help her change.

So when I choose to pull my power back and leave her to her own devices, I’m not being callous or unloving. If anything, I’m loving myself more and giving her room to explore the dead-end she’s in until she’s fully satisfied with the experience of her rut. (Yes, odd as it sounds, like a patron at a fancy banquet, no matter how crazy or irrational it seems to outsiders, she needs to reach full satisfaction with her misery before she’ll change it.)

The first thing I do to take my power back is to ask myself, “Did she actually ask for my help?” (No). “Does she truly feel motivated to try something new and courageous?” (No.) Now I can face up to an idea: maybe it’s ME who is wanting something that she doesn’t see a way to give. I want my friendship and intimacy with her, but I may have to adjust my desires instead.

This is where manifesting becomes powerful, because it asks, “How do I adjust so that I’m not allowing my life and energy to be drained and disappointed by this relationship?” By asking this of myself, I’m no longer at my friend’s mercy, waiting for her to change: I am the one who will adjust my needs and desires. Flowdreaming is a potent ally in this process: Instead of Fowdreaming to try to make her see how her behavior is always negating our friendship, or Flowdreaming to pull her back into my life (both are examples of me trying to run her castle) instead I Flowdream that my need for close, intimate friends, in general, is being constantly fulfilled.

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Helpful Flowdreams for Detaching and Feeling Good Again
Remove Obstacles and Resolve “Irresolvable” Situations
Flowdreaming for Happy Relationships Downloadable CD
Daily Flowdreaming: 11 Flowdreams in 11 Days
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I Flowdream that I have people in my life who swirl me forward and inspire me, instead of it always being the other way around. I Flowdream that my friends are always available to share time with me, and enjoy good experiences with my family. I let go of my particular desires that I’ve loaded on this friend, and I ask my Flow to give me so much inner fulfillment in my personal relationships, with whichever friends are ready to give it, that I no longer burden this particular one with requests she can’t fulfill. My Flow, in return, starts offering up this to me as new people come into my life, and new friendships start to coalesce, and I discover that there really are people whom I like just as they are or who can even show me a thing or two about friendship.

Flow makes all this possible. I just have to take my power back by taking my “I need you to change” energy back. What is hard, though, is releasing my hopes and expectations. I don’t want my friend to drift away. I don’t want to see her get mired in her life, and no longer be the shining light I know she is. I want to be able to confide in her, but I can’t if she’s not a flexible, supportive, willing presence in my life. And that is where I need to pluck up my courage to say, “So be it.”

I end the process of letting go by feeling, in my Flow, that our relationship is divinely guided. I feel how she’s being guided to see whatever she needs to see, by whatever means her Flow sees best. I feel how our connection is still strong and open secure, and even though I may not be getting from the friendship what I need right now, we might again be close someday. I let our Flow move us both toward the people and experiences that nurture us and support us.

This example is not just limited to just friendships, by the way. I could be talking about a spouse, or a child, parent, or soon-to-be-ex-romantic partner. The principle is the same. You probably have a person in your life with whom you feel this way, too.

I know, it can sound a bit sad, but look deeper and what you see is a very positive willingness to face where you’re at in a courageous and hopeful way. Manifesting means accepting the now fully and clearly, so you can make even better, more effective decisions about creating a fulfilling future. When you can see things clearly like this everyday, day after day, the “now” becomes better and better, and even things like friendships, or the need to change someone, become fluid and flexible, and move through your life with much less agony and much more faith.

Changing my friend is no longer an option. She may not realize it yet, but now she can explore whatever place she’s in without the additional burden of me haranguing her. And, I feel better, knowing that there will probably come a point when we again become close, after she reaches her own realizations in whatever way she chooses to do so. But in the meantime, I am very happy with whatever new intimacies Flow brings me.

Flow always works to offer the best to everyone—there are no losers in the land of spirit. We just have to trust, and allow, and have the courage to move on. May you Flow with joy and release, now and always.

My dear Summer, I have been listening to your tapes, reading your books and following you and your mother’s advice for the past few years now. Even when things were not going so well for me, I never gave up my flowdreaming path. I am happy to tell you my dreams came true on August 24th, 2010. I won $1,452,130.64 at our local casino. I do have a vision board with one million dollars on it, a new car, and pictures of a new kitchen. Summer I now have it all thanks to your flowdreaming and my strong believing things will come. I have mentioned to many friends and my own daughters just how you have changed my way of thinking. I share my books and tapes. Now I need to replace them!! Just hearing your voice everyday is power to me. There is so much more I could go on an on about, I just felt you should know  what flowdreaming has done for me. Now I can afford to someday see you live. — Lynn Hunter

I’ve been asking people to let me know what Flowdreaming has helped them with in their lives. Lynn’s email flowed in with the dozens of others I’ve been receiving. It’s one thing to read my books or listen to me rambling on during my radio show each week about the broad, supportive, almost “magical” power of Flow energy in all of our lives. It’s quite another thing to read about  other people’s extraordinary successes.

I’ve always been reluctant to promise anyone that the Flow can MAKE them lucky. Just as I would never promise anyone a miracle. How could I? It’s THEIR Flow. THEY are the creators in their lives, not me!! But have I seen miracles happen? Have I helped “unplug” things and get energy moving for people? Oh, yes!

I know that Universal energy (Flow) can cause just about ANY circumstance to flow into people’s lives. It has made so many “seeming miracles” happen, from the perfect recovery of babies who’ve had brain operations to people who’ve effortlessly reached tenure in their University positions…the stories go on and on. But Lynn is now our biggest casino winner!!! Go, Lynn!

Personally, I create sense of being generally lucky almost every time I Flowdream. I feel this “luck energy” in whatever area of my life I’m focusing on: sometimes I feel lucky that my kids get the best teachers at school. Sometimes I feel lucky that a good new speaking opportunity came to me. Sometimes I feel lucky that I even got the proverbial good parking spot!

But each time I feel “lucky,” what I’m really do is affirming with the Universe that there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be constantly moving on a path of ease and reward. If I’m on the freeway of ease and good things, why get off on a bumpy pot-holed road? Flow “listens” to my feelings of how lucky I am, and happily “obeys” by offering up experiences that uphold my feelings and expectations. We’re in a little dance together. We stay on the freeway.

The feeling of being a”lucky winner” whether in a casino, in the lottery, or even winning at your local bake sale–is powerful and unmistakable, and we’ve ALL felt it before. Sure, we’ve felt it when we’ve been on a true winning streak, but even a particularly good day—when everything seems like it goes your way, and you’re given all kinds of good news throughout the day–has a feeling of “luck” attached to it. It feels smooth, effortless, happy, and somehow “right” with the world.

This is also EXACTLY how you describe being in the Flow. If you can’t recall this feeling, or you want help bringing it in, I’ve even made a few CDs for Wealth and being Super Lucky that can help you summon this feeling again in your life. And on my radio show on Tuesday, May 3, I’ll be devoting the whole show to luck, lotteries, and winning!

So, think of being “lucky” as simply being powerfully aligned to your own, true, inner Flow energy. Or think of it as being aligned into God’s (or Source’s) true, beautiful Flow. That’s got to be effortless, powerful, and lucky, right? So why are you apart from it? Go get back in. Source waits for you. Flow wants you to be within it. All of nature and life and the Universe itself works better when we’re all moving together in alignment with all the best things.

Somehow, we get it into our heads that things have to be tough, and we have to fight for what we want, and we have to compete and take things from others for ourselves. But Nature is balanced. If she takes, she also gives. And despite the old sayings, it’s not an eye for an eye, or tit for tat. You may give hugely of your heart and time, and be rewarded (”get lucky”) with money. Or you may work hard with your hands and mind, and be rewarded (”get lucky”) with a beautiful relationship with someone. The Universe only sees an exchange of energy. What shape or form that energy is in is of little consequence. For example, I exchange knowledge and hopefully a little optimism and joy with the world. In return, I’m looking for a comfortable life for my family, and lots of love and creative fulfillment. Flow gives these things to me in the energy exchange I’ve created.

I followed up with Lynn and asked her what she was going to exchange her big gobs of cash for, because cash is energy too. She wrote:

I have been blessed with the funds to improve my home life and others in need around me. I have helped strangers out recently with material items they need, just to see tears of thanks in their eyes, which is so overwhelming… I now have the time to spend in my garden, I am taking art classes and little trips to the coast to watch the waves bring in happiness and take out all the sadness. If a person would just take the time to just look at all the wealth that surrounds them and get in a boat and Flowdream along their creek, everything will come to them in time. Never give up.

Isn’t that beautiful?

1. Break out the honesty.
Very often the source of our frustrations is our fear that our loved one will not accept how we feel or what we need in a situation. Honesty needs to be purposefully developed and cultured. It often doesn’t just happen by itself, especially if we grew up in homes where honesty wasn’t the norm. When we expect that what we need and feel won’t be honored, we either clam up or stuff down our needs. If the idea of being honest and open sends shivers of fear up your spine, then you know you REALLY need this tip: Create a list of relationship issues with various loved ones that you want be more open about, and work your way up by starting with the easiest first. In your Flow, pre-act scenarios where you are open and honest, and feel the relief and acceptance when you do so. This opens the energies to allowing honesty into your relationships in a safe, comfortable way.

2. Fighting is good.
Well, certain kinds of fighting are good…such as arguments in which you and your loved one share honestly and openly (remember that last tip?), which work to air and resolve sticking points in relationships. Once things are on the table, they can be resolved or improved. A lack of arguing, on the other hand, can mean that you or your loved one has simply resigned themselves (unhappily) to certain aspects of your relationship. Your instincts will know if your smooth sailing is due to your ongoing openness with each other, or from your or your loved one’s refusal to engage. (And remember, fighting in which someone is hostile, derogatory, or accusational is NOT the kind of sharing that brings improvement.) To help create “effective” disagreements that result in improvement, you can daydream a scenario in your Flow in which during your next dispute, you suddenly see just the “right angle” for opening up and sharing, which is met with authentic openness and attention from your loved one.

3. Have real boundaries, and enforce them.
Real, enforced boundaries mean that you have a defined what healthy and unhealthy behaviors exist in the people around you, and you’ve made sure they know what you will and won’t tolerate. This may be the wife who leaves the house whenever her husband begins to overpower her with his voice when arguing (because unacceptable behavior–shouting–is met with a predictable consequence: she removes herself from the abuse). Or it may mean the parent who warns their child not to leave the house without telling them clearly where they’re going, or they lose driving privileges. Enforced boundaries create a comforting predictability, while “backing down” from the boundaries that keep you sane and protected leave you exposed and insecure. You can very quickly identify where your boundaries are being overrun by going into your Flow and sensing what parts or aspects of your relationships make you uneasy. These show where you’re boundaries are being crossed or uninforced. Ask your Flow to help you understand what boundaries or rules you need to have to heal these worrisome areas.

4. Action, action.
This tip means it’s time to stop waiting for “things to change” and just start acting and behaving as if they already have. This is a good tip for perfectionists, procrastinators, and overthinkers who get caught up in being tentative and waiting for the right moment or the right conversation, etc., before taking initiative. A lot of us want to make a move or shift in a relationship, but the right time just never comes. So “action action!” reminds us that sometimes the right time will NEVER come–not until we ourselves start making changes. Ask your Flow to begin giving you easy actions and to bring in the right people and perfect openings for you to begin doing first, and analyzing later.

5. Don’t doubt your feelings.
Your feelings are sensitive antennae. They point out what’s going on, often before your rational mind has time to decode all the hints. Imagine your feelings as sensitive interceptors of the Flow energy around you, reading the energy behind situations even when the logic isn’t there yet to support them. If something feels wrong, it probably IS wrong, no matter how it’s dressed up at the moment. (Although sometimes our feelings do lead us into irrational ideas, more often than not they really are alerting us to something we dislike, even if it’s not what we think.) If you’re working through tough emotional issues with a loved one, one good strategy is to use your Flow to create energy templates for healthy, mutually satisfying interactions. For instance, if you need to know exactly how someone is feeling, but they won’t tell you, then in your Flow, daydream a scenario in which your loved one feels totally free, open, and sharing. Support this with open, receptive feelings on your end. Then allow the Flow to work out the best path to this very scenario occurring in real life.

People often want to know how to get started Flowdreaming. So, I’ve put together the simple program that follows.

The technique of Flowdreaming has three components:

1. Awareness of Flow energy

2. Strong, directed emotion

3. Guided daydreaming

First, remember that your mind or consciousness is already adrift in this Flow. After all, it’s made of this energy. Your brain creates, stores, and synthesizes data, but it does so more like a quantum computer would—using quantum Flow energy instead of regular electricity. So your mind is already in the Flow, at all times. But you need to convince yourself of it, so this where guided daydreaming comes in. When you daydream, your mind seems to “detach itself” from your exterior surroundings. It “goes” somewhere, and you often don’t even realize it. Well, instead of “drifting off” unaware into a fantasy, in Flowdreaming, you pay attention to where you’re going. You still drift—but you watch where you’re drifting, similar to having a lucid dream.

This means you close your eyes, and let your mind wander. Daydream. Bring up an image that makes you think about the concept of Flow. Maybe you see a beautiful, winding river of light with an internal “aliveness” so it knows exactly where it’s going. Or, you see a starry sky with a glittering path that weaves through space, surrounded by strings of light energy moving in and out of complex and beautiful patterns all around you. Or maybe you see an ocean of light, with a current that tugs and pulls you gently toward a perfect destination.

Put yourself into this place, and feel this direction, like a bird on the wind. Feel yourself carried. Feel how expansive this place is. Feel how it’s the place “before” everything you see around you. It’s the germination point. The blueprint or matrix of it all.

Give your mind plenty to see and feel here. This isn’t mediation. Don’t clear your mind. Open it—see, feel, and hear whatever images, emotions, or sounds that come to you. People with very busy, creative minds love this aspect of Flowdreaming.

The next part of Flowdreaming has to do with emotion. So, you know what Flow is, and you’ve “daydreamed” what this place is like. Now, how do you communicate with it? What kind of paint do you use on this canvas? You use your emotion.

Emotion is the universal language—not just between all mankind, but within the universe itself. A thousand words can’t describe the immensity of one single, strong feeling. The Flow responds to emotion as if you were to drop food coloring into clear water. What you feel, your Flow becomes. If you feel joy, your Flow radiates that joy all through it, and the physical things that manifest in your future must somehow align or support that joy. If you feel “release,” then your future holds opportunities for you to let go of things. If you feel rich (and the feelings of safely, relief, and excitement the idea of “rich” generates in you), then your future has been coded for more of these feelings and will generate opportunities for you to experience them.

I call this emotional communication method, “pre-action.” Unlike re-action, which is what we do 90% of the time, pre-action means that we’ve given ourselves permission to feel an emotion before there is any triggering event in our life to justify that feeling. For example, in reality, let’s say you’re ill and usually feel tired, heavy, depressed, and sick. You react to your illness with those heavy emotions all day long.

But you want to change that. So, you might go in your Flow and feel radiantly healthy, alive, and full of energy. You are pre-acting what you want to feel in your future. If you feel happy, light, freed, and healthy in your Flow, you are tasking the universe to figure out a way to translate that into your physical life. Your flow must then match you. Your Flow must match your exterior state to your interior state. So changing your interior Flow through pre-action forces your exterior life to match whatever has been pre-acted in the interior. Now you may have heard of this idea before: that you are what you think. However, you’re doing more than just thinking here: you are being it, in your Flow—the genesis point.

So here you are, in a Flowdream. You imagine or daydream what you think the Flow looks like. And unlike most daydreams, at first it feels odd, since you are aware of yourself doing this (whereas daydreams just “happen”). And so you might feel a little self-conscious. You might be saying to yourself, “What do I do next?” You might worry that you’re not “deep enough” in.

I say, relax. Flow. Daydream. Allow yourself a few minutes or however long it takes before your mind lets go of its self-consciousness. Create a picture in your mind of the Flow—however it presents itself to you. Then begin to feel, or pre-act, your goals and desires. Feel the emotions of them, not the actual “things” that you’re desiring.

In other words, if you want a wonderful new romantic relationship, feel how you are deliriously happy. Sense a “presence” with you in your Flow, a partner, and how you’re adored. Don’t spend time on how this person looks. Don’t think about how you’ll meet. Don’t worry that this person hasn’t arrived yet. Let your Flow figure all that out. That’s the job of your Flow—to look at all the infinite possibilities present every moment as our futures are all rolling rapidly forward, and it weaves in the most accurate, perfect route or path to fulfill whatever emotional directive (blueprint) you’ve given it.

This is really important: Flow does the how, where, and when. Your job is to describe the what. You are the designer—your Flow is the builder. You can’t possibly forecast all the potential ways that a situation could develop in your life. The logistics are mind-boggling. But Flow has no physical limitation. It simply hears and responds, using itself as the medium to fulfill your wishes. If you want a better job, it “hears” your desire as a call for security, happiness, appreciation, and abundance in the form of income—then looks at all the flows of possibilities out there. Businesses and corporations all have their individual “flows,” or energy signatures. Every person has their Flow. Events have a flow of energy. Thoughts are flows of energy. Combine people, events, and thoughts . . . and there are so many ways situations can come together.

This means that when you Flowdream, don’t say or feel things like, “This is so unrealistic! How can this possibly happen?” Whatever you put in your Flow is what you are telling your Flow to do for you. Put in worry or doubt, and you’ll receive that back in your life. Put in feelings of fulfillment, or that your prayers have been answered, and your Flow can do that just as easily. You can see why so many people’s lives are filled with misery, bitterness, and unhappy events. They expect them, so they receive them.

You have to pretend you are reading a novel. You “daydream” just like you see the characters in your head. You feel or express emotion just like you feel your characters’ thoughts and feelings. You become the story; you believe the story. You don’t sit there the whole time telling yourself “it’s just a pretend story.” No, you give yourself up to it. Do this with your Flowdream.

And that’s it! 1) Flow, 2) strong emotion, and 3) guided daydreaming. Bring all three together, and you have a powerful tool.

If you’re working with one of my CDs, then you’ll notice that each track on the Flowdreaming CD is specifically targeted to an area of your life. The second track on many of the CDs, Positive Flow, is particularly important. This track aligns you with your Flow in every possible good way. This means that whatever is stuck, out of balance, or not working in your life will be impacted in a beneficial way.

The other tracks pinpoint whatever situation you want to focus on. So, you don’t need to play a whole CD at once. You can and should play just one or two tracks at a time, as you work on just one or two situations at a time.

Flowdreaming is flexible. You can do it everyday, or twice a day, or once a week…whatever feels right. The more you do it, however, the more organizing and programming you’re doing. Here is what I suggest:

Days 1, 2 and 3:   Play Positive Flow once a day.

Days 3, 4, 5, 6:   Play any track, twice a day. You can choose the same track for both sessions, or different tracks for each, depending if you want to work on just one or several situations in your life.

Days 7 and beyond. Vary it. Sometimes play Positive Flow, and other times play a different track. Do it once or twice a day depending on your schedule.

You can also move on to other CDs in this series, and mix in tracks from those. You can find a complete list here: www.flowdreaming.com.

And yes, if you have more than one CD, you can Flowdream for several different things at once (such as lots of money and great health). Switch up your focus whenever it feels right.

Now, select a track, and start Flowdreaming! All my best wishes go with you. And please, contact me any time to share your comments and experiences.

Flowdreaming is a technique that lets you reshape your world—literally. It’s not meditation, or hypnosis, or based on positive affirmations or any other kind of program you may already know. It’s unique, and its purpose is to help you access the creative, energetic “underside” of life, so you can sculpt and direct your future.

It’s a big promise, but once you learn this technique, it will feel so simple and natural that you’ll wonder how you never knew about it before.

What Is Flow?

Flow is like a net or ocean of energy that runs over, under, around, and through everything in our Universe. It’s an energy of information, or a giant collection of data about everything that is, was, or potentially may be. And this net of energy or “information” has its own kind of internal, intrinsic awareness.

Imagine if every single thing in our universe had an inner understanding of what it was, or an awareness of its internal structure, or a consciousness of itself, on some very deep level. And all this consciousness put together—all this collected information or awareness— is what everything is actually made of. The physical things in life (apples, TVs, thoughts, wind) are just expressions of this awareness that take a physical form.

Some things, like paper airplanes, have no obvious awareness of what they are, but there’s an intrinsic “something”—a template—that makes the airplane stay an airplane. It has an internal blueprint, so to speak, and this blueprint or template is constantly changing as it continually recreates itself as it moves through time. It is slightly different every second, as the atoms within it move and decay. And so this paper airplane has a trail of information about itself from its past to its future. From the time it was part of a tree (and the tree grew from the earth, and back ever farther) to whatever will happen to it after it’s thrown in the trash—it’s in a state of becoming, and everything that its ever been is recorded. Every single way it has changed is documented in the flow of data. This, then, becomes the information that makes up the personal “flow” of this paper airplane.

Now imagine everything in the universe—even you—with a flow of information about itself, just like this plane. This is your personal Flow, and you can see how all our Flows of “being” are all constantly interacting and changing. This is the stuff we want to affect as we learn to manifest.

The way that we affect this energy is with our minds. Today, there’s a quantum theory of interconnectedness that tells us that when someone thinks about something, they actually affect whatever it is they’re thinking about, or observing. This becomes a problem for scientists who want to objectively measure quantum information. They simply can’t, because by merely observing a phenomena, they become part of the phenomena—a participant in it.

It’s similar to when your friend is thinking about calling you on the phone, and you “sense” it a moment before the call. From the moment she thought about you, your friend becomes part of your phenomena—your Flow. The fact that you register it in your awareness, that you “pick up” on her intention, means that somehow, the two of you are connected. Even though you’re not in the same room, you’re still sharing information, instantly, with one another. Your minds or consciousness are both part of Flow energy, where everything is instant and connected. When you think and feel something, it instantly blooms into existence, both within the Flow (as new data being generated and recorded) and within your physical reality (as a thought inside your head). Your new Flowdreaming practice will show you how to begin creating new data in the Flow that will translate itself into your physical reality.

Ultimately, Flowdreaming is the technique that lets us become aware of our constant coding of this data. Like someone writing a computer program, we write the code of our future through our constant interaction with this cosmic, quantum web of information. We aren’t passive bystanders, we are active consciousnesses, helping to create and shape everything around us, all the time, through our thinking.

Incidentally, many physicists have also quietly come to the same conclusion. They believe that we are all connected somehow, to a vast web of life—a kind of cosmic awareness.  Scientists as diverse as founder of Jungian psychology, Carl Jung, to Nobel laureate physicist Eugene Wigner, have all suggested that our universe has within it a kind of cosmic or overarching consciousness—and all our smaller minds, or consciousnesses, are a part of this.

Not only does Flow seem to have an internal awareness, but another distinctive quality is its direction or path. Like most natural phenomena, our Flows are always traveling the path of least resistance in a particular, expansive  and forward-moving direction that mirrors the evolutionary movement of life. Like water to the sea, your life should be easy, flowing, and in tune with this natural rhythm. You should always be expanding and adding to your awareness, as a matter of nature. And like water that never struggles to reach the sea, when you’re in your Flow, you too travel a path of ease and direction. In a riverbed, obstacles are temporary, and there’s a force (gravity) that always realigns the water into the easiest, most direct path to its destination. You’re likewise pulled by the force of your Flow toward your path of ease, evolution, expansion, upward direction, and fulfillment of your desires through any means the Flow has available for you.

Next, the Flow is malleable. This means that it responds to our thoughts and desires. It does what we ask, or think. We can shape or direct Flow energy by filling it with our intention or desire in the form of emotion.

You see, mostly, we go through life not paying any attention to what thoughts, feelings, and directives we’re sending into our Flow, so we get what we get is based on some “default” baseline already present inside ourselves. We give all of our attention to the physical side of life, and very little to programming this interior side. But when you go into your Flow (or open your awareness to it) through Flowdreaming, you enter or become more aligned with this pure, malleable energy, and you can insert your desires into this flowing fabric so that your physical life then has to follow the template you’ve created there. It’s all about making new templates, or blueprints, just how you want them.

So there you have it: Flow energy is the living energy of the cosmos. It’s responsive, aligned, and growth-oriented and expansive. It’s malleable or sculpt-able, and it encompasses all the information that is, was, or ever will be. It includes all of our consciousnesses, and the “awarenesses” or spirits of a vast number of other kinds of “beings” that have also evolved from Source energy. To Christians, it’s is the stuff of God–His toolbox–and it’s for you to use and learn from. To all others, it’s simply the most extraordinary material you can use to paint your existence into being. Become an artist with Flow energy, and make your life your creation.

Keep reading by going to the post , “How to Flowdream.”

You can guess what kind of “go leap off a cliff” look I gave him. When you’re blue, it’s hard to hear any kind of pick-me-up talk, even from people who care about you.

You see, I’ve been feeling passed over a lot lately, like the dish at the picnic that no one tries. The kid not picked for the team, while all her buddies pick each other. The girl waiting to be asked to the dance, while all her best guy friends ask someone else. Rejection is an experience that comes early and the sting stays, no matter how old we get. Psychology Today has a good article that explains why it’s necessary that we carry around such deep emotional responses to rejection.

As professionals and adults, we still encounter it when we’re passed over for a job, or when the person we’re dating kindly lets us know that we’re not “clicking,” or when the bank rejects your loan application, or in any of a myriad of other situations. “What’s wrong with me?” we ask ourselves.

What does the Flow tell us about this? Why are we overlooked, or snubbed, or passed by or not chosen? Let’s take a moment to acknowledge our feelings, first:

To begin with, we have the emotional response. This is the pout, the hurt feelings, the ego that says, “But why not me? Am I not [insert any word here: 'good enough,' 'talented enough,' 'smart enough,' etc.].” The emotional response is based on biology, and it’s actually necessary for our survival. But we don’t have to let it dominate.

This is where the intellectual response comes in, as we try to rationalize the rejection: “Maybe I just wasn’t exactly what they were looking for. Who knows what criteria they really have. Maybe the fit really wouldn’t have been right.”

But finally, there’s the Flow response, and this is where you involve trust. It’s true, trust is hard to come by on the heels of hurt and disappointment, but if you steer your thoughts back to your Flow, you can release both the emotional and intellectual responses, and feel peace again.

When you’re rejected, your Flow is saying: “Listen up! You wanted a great fit, right? You wanted happiness, satisfaction, fulfillment, expression and reward from this thing on your list, right? Well I’m telling you is that this path wasn’t it. You thought it was, but you need to consider whomever or whatever it was that rejected you as a cog in the machine, spinning you into a different direction–one that’s better for you. You can’t see it yet, but someday you will. Trust me.”

Think about this for a moment: What areas of your life right now are flowing freely, where you’re experiencing very little rejection? And now, in which areas are you encountering rejection?

You see, some areas are wide open for you now. Think of a toll road: these are your fast track lanes. If you want to get stuff done, drive there. Those areas may not always be on “fast track.” Take up the opportunity while you can, instead of looking at those lanes where you’re stuck behind the slow moving trucks while the other drivers are honking at you and making rude gestures.

We often take for granted the lanes that move for us, particularly if they’re a lifelong. Maybe you’ve always had an easy time in your career, but never with love. Or vice versa. And so we dwell on what we don’t have, rather than on what we do. The obsession to fix the “delayed” or “dysfunctional”  or “non-flowing” areas can become overwhelming.

But, Flow thinking says, “Trust.” Just let go and trust for awhile. Trust isn’t for wimps. It’s one of the very hardest things to do. So allow the areas where the rejection is roiling to settle and cool. Then return, and begin feeling around the area again. Things are always changing; people, jobs, health, everything. So release it, trust, and return to the game. Consider your time spent on other activities the equivalent of time at the batting cages, warming up. Rejection, as my friend says, means you’re still in the game. At some point, you will be chosen.

Hi Summer,

I am excited to be writing to you. I just discovered Flowdreaming ten minutes ago, and I wanted to ask something. My Flow is equal to my thoughts and my emotions, and they tell the universe what I want. I understand that. I’m at a point in my life where I’m learning about Law of Attraction . . . but I do not fully grasp the difference between what God intends for you compared to what you want and gain for yourself. Could you help me please? —Lavana

Lavana, when you awaken to the idea that you are a powerful creator within your own life, this can bring up a conflict in your mind. You wonder, How can I create if some things were already pre-planned for me? You might think some events or people are there by fate, karma, or because it is God’s plan.

What I’ve seen over the years is this: when you begin looking at your life from a pure energy perspective, it’s like looking out at a super-highway, with a million “lanes” of light in front of you. You’re more likely to speed down some of these lanes than others, based on where you want to go, and what roads you’ve already put yourself on.

So things do come to you with a feeling of inevitability sometimes—because you’ve been cultivating (or driving down) that path, probably unknowingly, for a long, long time. Think of the energy of all your thoughts, actions, and feelings spooling out ahead of you in life. These arcs of energy pull in things complementary to what you’re now experiencing. When you begin to consciously change these arcs or paths of energetic attraction, you’re purposely swerving into a new lane.

If you say, What has God planned for me? then from a full Flowthinking perspective, you would rephrase that question instead to say, What new experiences can I give to God?There’s a lot of depth behind this question, which I fully answer in chapters 8, 9, and 10 of Creative Flowdreaming. God is not planning for you; God is receiving from you. God is curious to know what kinds of experiences you bring to It, and what you’ll make from the sandbox of physical life It has given to you. (You can also learn more about this perspective through this CD, which I made with my mother, Venus.)

If you believe that you are here for a reason, or to meet a soul mate, or for some other destined event, then ask your own Greater Self when, where, and how this desire will fruit for you. Ask God, too, to allow this new experience to flow easily into your life. Don’t wait for God’s plan, make your own and offer it up to God.

It may take awhile for this new understanding of destiny to settle in. But after awhile, you’ll come to see how fate, prophesy, and destiny are merely strong potentials that may or may not come into play in your life, like an ace or a deuce turning up in your hand of cards. This is good thing, because it means you can now work with God and come into an understanding of the godliness in yourself, instead of being at the mercy of God, when designing your own life.

So please grant me this exception…you see, a few weeks ago my second book about Flowdreaming came out. It’s called Creative Flowdreaming. And hot on the book’s heels is my other new project: a 6-month online course called, The Art of Flowdreaming, to teach you how to become a Manifesting Practitioner in your own life.

Between these two, you can learn everything you need to know to make real, concrete changes in your own life. First, it isn’t another “Law of Attraction” book. (LOL, I think just about anything worth being said on that has been said.)

Instead, Creative Flowdreaming takes you deep into what living in the Flow really means. Sure, the first few chapters lay out the nuts and bolts of the technique, and give you a thorough introduction to the art of manifesting in general, but from there, I go into the deeper questions that I’ve encountered over the years. Questions that are usually deal-breakers for the inexperienced manifestor, such as why we have to suffer if we’re supposed to be able to “control” our destinies through manifesting. Or, if those “learning experiences” we supposedly set up for ourselves are real, and how much of our lives are “preplanned?” Or, how does karma fit into a manifestor’s life?

I also talk about why seem to go through the same experiences again and again, and why sometimes it takes so long to receive what we ask for. Many of the answers to these questions are surprising–even to myself. But every answer gives you that “ah ha” feeling, because manifesting is really a philosophy–a  way of living that follows an internal logic. When you become aware of this logic, you move to a deeper level in your practice, and the world stops “happening to you.” Instead, it begins happening for you.

The online course that I’ve put together takes the material in the book and applies it to our lives over the course of six months. I hope that many of you will take up the challenge with me and come together as a highly creative, potent group. We’ll use the course to explore your individual potential for manifesting, and sharpen and develop your skills. Nothing I do is fluffy filler. Like my blogs, every class has an objective, and will have a purpose in your development. (If you’ve taken my Flowdreaming Prosperity Challenge, you know this to be the case.) I’ll even be giving you free Flowdreaming mp3s throughout the series to practice with between classes. There’s so much more I could say about it–but just take a look here at the course outline by scrolling to the bottom.

Many years ago, I remember feeling a desperate need for a teacher. I wanted someone to show me my next step, and take responsibility for mentoring my spiritual development. Not long after, the Flow began winding its way into my life, asking me to examine all of my beliefs and forcing me to rebuild my spirituality from practically scratch. It also led me into new areas–changing my career, and even causing me to begin teaching others though books and radio. I realized belatedly that the Flow itself has been my teacher, a vast net of creative intelligence from which our lives are brought into fruition moment by moment.

While working with the Flow since then, I have in fact encountered deeply intelligent “teachers” of the variety I’d been expecting, but overall, to my surprise what I got instead was the whole University, like a campus in which I can walk into any building and ask any question. It’s an open University, though. You don’t need to apply, you don’t need to be accepted–you just need the desire to walk through its door, and the Flow will take you from there.

So…I invite you to class with me. Hope to see you in the front row soon.

With love and blessings,

Summer

P.S. My deep appreciation and thanks to all of you who are beginning to write reviews of Creative Flowdreaming on Amazon.com.

Let’s start with #1. For many years, I’ve been in a position where I’ve offered some excellent business ideas to someone. These are ideas that will really make her business take off—and likewise I’ve told her where she’s made some pretty obvious business blunders. The problem is, my friend never actually asks for my opinion, and this is hard for me, since I think I have such good opinions to give (sound like anyone you know?), and I know her industry well. However, lately I’ve finally had to face the idea that to her, my ideas are always lead—not gold. This hurts me. It hurts that she doesn’t think I can offer her anything of value. It hurts my self-esteem, since somewhere along the way I realize that I’ve tied some of my self-esteem to what she thinks of me. This is because I care about her, and want her to think well of me.

This has probably happened to you, too, somewhere in your life. Someone you care about (it could be your mom, brother, friend, or even your boss) doesn’t value your opinion, and since you judge your own value based on what they think of you, you always lose out. What can you do about this? What can I do about this?

This brings me to #2. Sometimes our ideas are clunkers, but often they aren’t. They may just need a little tweaking to get them right. Or they may need a lot of effort or resources. But if you have an idea and you have the passion to fulfill it, then who, really, is to stop you? You might say that you need help. You need the authority. You need funding. You need emotional support. Your list can get very long of all the things you think you need. You can look at any one of the big obstacles in your life right now and create a nice list of all the things you need to fix it as well as all the ideas you had to fix it that were tossed out. The bottom line is, sometimes you just have to pick something a go for it, and stop thinking that anyone else has to think it’s a good idea too. True, you could be wrong. The idea could be lead. But your only other option is often paralysis—you don’t go for what you think is right because you aren’t supported or are told you can’t and on and on.

So where does #3 fit in? That’s the concept that some things will flow for you, while others won’t. Golden ideas flow. The energy of life is behind them. Clunkers largely sink. Some bad ideas do seem to perpetuate themselves longer than you’d think is possible, but that’s always because they have an enabler involved. The enabler might be a big source of funding, a bad boss, a family member, or someone or something invested in them even as their project or job or relationship is crumbling. Bad ideas don’t heed the Flow, and if viewed correctly are allowed to wash away so good ideas can take their place. So, what if you have an idea for something (a new career, a new way of handling your relationship, or even new hobby you want to take up), but you can’t find support for it? If you were me, I’d go for it anyway. I’d begin to see what happens—do I get resistance or do I get opportunities? And what, you say, if your ideas are blocked? What if my boss or husband or someone who really counts is opposed to it?

If that’s the case, then step back a minute. Ask yourself, are my ideas habitually blocked? Is this a large source of frustration in my life? If the answer is yes, then pull back from your latest greatest idea and begin asking the larger question: Why am I allowing so much blockage in my life?

….and to answer that one, it’ll take a whole other post.

*To support your creative or entrepreneurial idea, I suggest the audio CD Flowdreaming for Enhanced Creativity and Success.

Anyway, she posted recently about how to find your life’s work. Now, this is coming from a woman who’s written for yahoo business, and other fancy big-name sites. Penelope has also worked for corporations—as have I. She’s had start-ups. So have I. And she’s got young kids in the midst of it all. So do I. So I was curious to see her advice, and after I read it, I thought, Gee, what would I say?”

I think most of us have wandered into our careers, rather than chosen them. Few of us set a goal, got a job, and worked our way in our selected field until we found that perfect niche, that ultimate job, that showcases all our talents, and makes us happy and rich.

Instead, we’ve taken what’s offered—the best we can find—in any area we think we might have a talent for. We always keep a burning thought in our mind of what we want or could be doing, but getting from A to Z is too much work amid just keeping it all afloat in our lives. So, I would say this to the question of “What should be doing with my life?”

First, recognize that you may never find that “ultimate” career. Your life may be more like a buffet, where you sample many pleasurable—and some awful—dishes. You’re moving from one experience to the next, “interviewing” each passage or phase of your life to see what it can offer to you. Change will come (it always does), and the good phases will drop away, along with the bad.

The idea of continuity in our lives is made up. Few people “become something” like a doctor or lawyer and stay that way all their lives. Even doctors and lawyers change their minds. Last week, a woman in a conference I was moderating told me she was in finance (a lawyer), and had just decided to get out. She had no idea where to go next. She just knew she had to end this phase.

A person who understands this—that what we “do” in our lives is always in the making—learns to be especially artful in the Flow. We see ourselves as riding a track, skating along, pausing sometimes for long intervals as we explore something (a teaching career, raising kids, selling real estate, working in the factory), then moving on once the experience is over. We learn that our lives are more like a quilt, with every patch of experience sewn into place—some poorly and haphazardly, while others are crafted with love. But at the end of the day, the quilt is our masterpiece, because we lived it. And every square brings memories to our minds.

When I think about my perfect career, or what I should be doing with my life, I never find the “right” job for me. Sometimes I think spreading the word about the Flow is my ultimate calling—because the Flow found me and often seems to use me for its own ends. And at other times, I think raising my kids is my calling. Sometimes, I look at my talents in my current job, and think, I’m pretty damn good at this. Maybe this is It. And sometimes, I let my mind wander and turn up all kinds of crazy ideas, unrelated to anything I’m doing in my life at all.

My point is that you will be many things. You are here to have many experiences. You won’t go in a straight line. That’s boring. You’ll go in zigzags and backtrack and sometimes even repeat yourself. The only thing you need to do is focus on what makes you feel good. Balance that with what pays your bills. Eventually, those two desires WILL come into alignment, like two roads merging to meet another.

So stop looking. Instead, Flow feelings of joy, appreciation, stability, and creativity when you think of your work or unknown life purpose—whatever it is that flicks your Bic. Pre-act these feelings, and allow your Flow to bring you the next most interesting thing it can find for you. Then explore that for awhile, suck the juice from it . . . and move on toward the next ripe fruit.