One of my students, Maddy, is telling me that she’s waking up at night, panicky, worrying that she’s going to lose her house when they lay her off at work. She doesn’t know when the layoffs will come.
She’s living in a constant state of low-level fear, feeling horribly frustrated and powerless. She’s even applied for another job in the same field that she doesn’t even want, and afraid they’ll reject her.
Last night, another student, Claire, told me that she’s already lost her job and now she’s dreading finding another even as the bills are piling up, since the jobs are always the same low-level, horrible, mind-numbing kind. She’s been on a merry-go-round of them for twenty-five years. Her credit card is stacked up with debt.
Both Claire and Maddy have the same emotional energetic pattern. Let’s pull it out into the sunshine and take a look.
I ask Maddy why she thinks she can’t be happy in a career.
She answers, “My parents always said ‘just get a job. No one likes their job. Everyone just does one. That’s the way it is. Just get through it.’”
“And that’s what you’ve been doing?”
She tearfully nods and chokes out, “Yeah.”
“Do you think I hate my job?” I ask.
“No.”
“Does my husband hate his job as a designer? Do you think my mom hates her job? Did my aunt hate her job teaching English as s second language? Does my cousin hate his job as a chef?”
No, no, no, and no.
“And do you think we have jobs we love because we’re special or smarter or something? In other words, different or better than you?”
“Yes,” she practically whispers.
“Ok then,” I say, “think of someone you know who’s not as bright or creative as you, who loves their job. Do you have that person in mind?”
She pauses, then tells me about a woman who does the same job as her at a different workplace, but who loves it. The woman’s really good at it, and makes more money at it too.
“Right, so you’re seeing that there might just be a whole huge group of people who love their jobs. Or at least like them a lot. And they get paid enough too, so they aren’t stressing and sweating every second.
“Do you know that I’ve had jobs I hated?” I continue. “I got called into the manager’s office once at a café I worked at and was told I couldn’t be on the cash register any more, since I was so bad at it, and they demoted me. Can you imagine? I’m actually great with money! And then later I was fired, too, from a job that I was really great at!
“You know what the only difference is between you and me? When I had a bad job that didn’t fit me or honor me, I left. Or if I was too stubborn to leave, I got fired instead.
“And I had a lot of those jobs in the beginning, as I was figuring out that I don’t need to be captive to a job. When I was working out the Lack Cycle in my thinking, I thought I have to take what I can get, and I am lucky to get it.
“But that didn’t make sense. How could I ever build a career that way? A job is what I spend more time doing than anything else in life except sleeping!
“So it’s my #1 priority to make sure that whatever I’m doing deserves enough to hold that much of my time and life.
“I’ve learned to not stay any place that makes me panicky, fearful, or where I’m not promoted. And I kept going until I found a job that I liked, that liked me back. Now I have that. I had to make that job myself, of course, but I have it!
“Now you, pretend your parents had told you instead something equally bizarre like, ‘Everyone has a bad marriage. No one likes their spouse. But you gotta stick it out. Even if you’re being abused. It’s just how it is.’
“Why is it so much easier to see what a crappy message that is? Because of the abuse part? Well, don’t these jobs abuse you just as much, but in a different way? Why is one sort of abuse ok, and another isn’t?
“Can you imagine if you’d met and married a man as abusive as your job? One that woke you up at night in a cold sweat, feeling totally powerless against, waiting for something bad to happen everyday, never giving you enough to live on? And he can leave you, but you can’t leave him. You need him.
“Wouldn’t you just want to tell your parents they’d done the worst job ever raising you?
“So what’s the difference between that message and the one about work? Nothing. Swap ‘guy’ for ‘job.’ See those low expectations?
“Your parents didn’t even know they had low expectations. They just know that this is what they were told, and they lived by it, and suffered through that, and there was even a kind of self-sacrificing nobility in it.
“Plus, it explained to them why they were always unhappy (because they were supposed to be! Because they’d be fools to expect otherwise!)
“What’s going on here, Maddy, is you don’t believe you can be happy at a job. You think other people can be happy, and have enough money, but not you. You keep proving it to yourself, too, but aligning up with jobs that will reinforce your beliefs. You’re making yourself right over and over. But you can change this.”
Maddy is quiet on the other end of the phone. I can tell she’s thinking about all the years she’s “wasted” in all those jobs she hated. She still isn’t able to think she can have a job she loves. She still feels there are loads of other, more qualified, smarter, better people out there who’ll snatch away any good job, and she’ll have to take whatever’s left.
But it’s a step.
People sometime think that manifesting or Flowdreaming is just about feeling the juicy good energy of money dropping down from the sky around you.
It’s not.
It’s also about dismantling pre-existing beliefs that prevent good beliefs from taking hold instead.
What you feel is what you create.
What you are is what you manifest.
Can you see, for instance, what happens if you do the Prosperity Challenge and absolutely stuff yourself with good emotions and energy, but then you fail to uproot your preexisting emotional patterns that consistently block you?
Stalemate.
Eventually, the scales will tip. Because if you Flowdream enough, you’ll arrive one day at the conclusion that you have a pattern, somewhere, and you are 100% ready to find it. You’ll know this deep in your gut.
You’ll be able to look at the job you have right now, and see how it’s a perfect reflection of your current thinking and feeling.
And you’ll know you can break your bad pattern through it.
Remember, you get what you need when you need it. This means that your opportunity to break a pattern (if one exists) is already there in front of you, in your current job. In other words, you already have what you need to start.
So, will you? What is your next step?
I’d love to hear your comments about whatever you got from this article today. Share your insights, and maybe they can help others!
Xo with lots of love and Flow!
Summer McStravick
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How amazing I came back to your site to check out the build rapport recording so I could use it to help me in my current job. I seem to have a pattern of coming off as rude or unlikeable to some people or unplesant – it is a communication style. and the first thing that popped up was this title! I have not even listened to it yet, but that THAT one was at the top seems so synchronous to me.
I fairly recently came across flowdreaming. Awesome. For want of a better word it resonates for me. Thank you! Now to go manifest stupendous wonders. hhmmm…what u ask. Whatever love, happiness, health and wealth I can handle and SharOn. I am so pleased to meet you!
This is article is BRILLIANT. As a Career Coach, I work with clients who feel stuck in dead-end careers. I do a lot of work helping my clients realize that they deserve more because they ARE more. But, Summer’s analogy comparing one’s job to a relationship is soooo good!
Actually, my parents toldme that about the job AND the marriage. Well not to accept physical abuse but that was the only out…starting to realize more why I am where I am. Are you sure happy working people aren’t better than I am somehow?
This e-mail was a perfect wake-up call for me due to what had just transpired the prior day for me. Another job ended and lately I have been wondering the same things Maddy was wondering in regard to the continuous replay of dead-end jobs and why I keep creating the same pattern over and over and why, when I want better for myself, do I keep repeating those feelings of unworthiness and of not being good enough or I must be doing something wrong than other people I know who have been successful at achieving what they desire. I know deep down I am deserving as we all are. Work in progress. I just wanted to thank you for the reminder to keep striving to release the false beliefs and create the life I want!
Thank you Summer, and all the commenters too , as such, I’m giving notice today to cut back my the number of shifts I work so I can truly attend to opportunities that are more in align with me! Part of how I got to this point – through flow dreaming I created WANT. This resulted in my mind searching at work for opportunities that sounded interesting. Then I truly explored them (googling for weeks, rechecking on alignment), if that panned out, then I worked on making sure I had basic skills required to start, then if that panned out, I would ask someone if I could help them in their similiar job, free, making sure I was fairly independent so I wouldnt make their job harder, yet still getting the answers I needed (not just asking a bunch of random questions), to see how close the task lined up with me, so I could get to the next step, which is now, cutting back on shifts to free up more time. (I already dumped the TV, extraneous internet, relationships that were holding me back, still friends, just not aligned with my future.) Just the process of exploring is helping me to gain confidence, and know what I really want, and I have more energy now than I have in years. And thats my 2 cents. Hope it helps.
Summer. OMG. I am so there. I read this. “You?ll be able to look at the job you have right now, and see how it?s a perfect reflection of your current thinking and feeling.” and I had a major AHA moment. So now u am thinking. “What now???”
I love this post, Summer. Very powerfully written. Tough Love and from a really gutsy and loving place. One of the most important things women need to give ourselves is permission to DESERVE what we want and permission to be happy and do what makes us happy. I’ve found this out after 10 years of research about success and women. FlowDream is a great way to do this, as it integrates energy, body, intention, emotion and mind. Thanks for this moving article.
Thank you Summer! I have been unfairly terminated from my job of 9 1/2 years and am home lost then I read your status and as always you inspire me to keep going. You are so blessed and I thank you for sharing your knowledge and love with us all.
Wow, I got chills reading this. I am 44, my only child is growing-up and I have no idea what to do with the rest of my life. I have attempted to study accounting on numerous occasions, as it is a lucrative field, since I have no talent for computers. I am also an artist, at least that’s how I always thought of myself. Somehow over the years, I got away from it, and the parental voices in my head keep exclaiming to get a “good/secure career, not something creative; they don’t call them starving artists for nothing!” I wouldn’t believe them if they didn’t make so much logical sense, but deep inside, it’s like I’m dying, or screaming. I once said to my (very supportive) husband, “If I put as much time & effort into my art as I do studying business courses I don’t like, imagine how good I’d be.” I can’t seem to get past the mental block, but this article really speaks to me, like maybe the universe will find a way to support me if I am happy. Also, not sure if it’s just coincidence, but my daughter’s name is Madelynne, or Maddy for short.
WOW Summer, thank you! I feel like I made the right decision, since I managed to get myself fired last year. Now I’m finding my way slower than I’d like, but I’ll get there! Every day I keep getting better and better at dismantling limiting beliefs… Sometimes they hurt, sometimes I cry, sometimes I laugh and sometimes I laugh and cry at the same time. It’s a rollercoaster called life and I’m loving it.
Just when I think I’m the only one to do this crazy thing as if almost taunting the laws, I am reminded by the universe that I’m not alone and I’m not the only one. Loving it! Thank you for sharing your always honest insights. 🙂
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You know what the only difference is between you and me? When I had a bad job that didnt fit me or honor me, I left. Or if I was too stubborn to leave, I got fired instead. ~ Summer
Summer, i called into the show today but had to hang up when a friend arrived…a friend who is having the same issues you talked about on the show. An issue i can relate to as well. I want to say thank you for all of the amazing flowdreams. We talked last summer about ME school and i opted for massage school as i received a scholarship. Lots of old patterns presented themselves in how i feel about myself, money, you name it! I own 12 of your flowdreams and they have helped me to crack open those stuck patterns. Listening to podcasts of older shows has also been extremely helpful. I feel supported and encouraged when i listen to them. They help me to stay in empowerment mode and avoid going into victim mode. THANK YOU Summer. your work is powerful and inspiring.
This made me cry, because for YEARS now I have been jobhunting and coming up with nothing. We even moved back to a place that I HATE, because there is a better chance of jobs here.
Well nearly a year later and I still dont have a job, and all I feel now is I am getting too old, no one wants to hire me, etc, and I dont know what to do about it anymore. Our money is almost gone (the end of every month I toss and turn and lay awake in fear that we wont have enough money to make the rent each time) and I have been living in fear for so long and struggling to feel something good about myself.
I have no family, no friends nearby and no support system. its all just me, in my head. I have the “this or better flowdream” and I have done it a few times, but I am always exhausted afterwards. I feel it SO much, it drains me. I know I should probably do it more often, Im just so depressed all the time now, I cant get motivated.
I recently discovered that I have a story about money and have the emotions that go with that story. I have not yet discovered what that story is, but am playing with the idea that it is an inherited story that has to do with hating the Nazis who stole my grandparents business, and so much more. It’s not even my hate. I will uncover the story and then I will have freedom from it. Any particular Flowdream you recommend? Lorrie
I love how you think. I was also on the phone when you were assiting your gifted Mother last month or this month I think. She got a little overwhelmed and I heard you assisting her. It was so so endearing,lol. Love you Two. KeepWINning!
Summer, thanks for this blog post! As you know, I’m right there with Maddy and Claire. I have all of the unstuck flowdreams, so I just put them altogether on a CD!
Hi Summer,
Love this article and your latest radio show about work and career!!! 🙂
I updated my itunes playlist with the 3 playlists/fd’s you mentioned at the end of this article. It’s taken me a long time to see how out of alignment I was in the work I had chosen tha past couple of years and I am so glad I have moved on. Still taking steps forward. Thanks so much for helping me.